Duke Chapel Recognizes the Service of Two Durham Community Leaders

Laura Steed (left) and Rev. Chris Breslin are this year’s recipients of Duke Chapel’s Humanitarian Service Award.

Two community leaders in Durham are the recipients of Duke Chapel’s Humanitarian Service Award. Laura Steed is the executive director and community leader of L’Arche North Carolina, which builds community among people with and without disabilities. Rev. Chris Breslin is the pastor of Oak Church, which emphasizes building Christian community rooted in its neighborhood.

The Chapel’s Humanitarian Service Award recognizes individuals who have demonstrated both a long-term commitment to serving others and a lifestyle marked by simplicity. This year’s recipients will each be honored with a grant of $1,500 given to a nonprofit they designate. They will also be recognized at a reception on Sunday, September 27, at 1:00 p.m. in the Bolton Family Tower Room in the Brodhead Center. 

Under Steed’s leadership over the last five years, L’Arche North Carolina established its first residential community in Durham, where people with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities share daily life. In August 2026, the organization purchased the Friendship Houses—two additional homes that will expand its residential community and create opportunities for more people to experience a life rooted in friendship and belonging. Steed leads the organization through fundraising, staff development, and partnership building, while also serving the community by preparing meals, providing transportation, and listening carefully during one-on-one conversations. 

“Her service is not based on charity offered from a distance, but on relationships of mutuality and proximity in which every person is recognized as both gifted and needed,” a colleague said in nominating Steed for the award. “Furthermore, Laura has strengthened Durham’s broader culture of disability inclusion through accessible community gatherings, educational programs, partnerships with congregations, schools, and nonprofit organizations, disability-justice events, and collaborations with Duke Divinity School.”
Before joining L’Arche, Steed was the director of religious and spiritual life and multifaith chaplain at the University of the Pacific. She completed a clinical pastoral education residency at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center and earned a master of divinity from Duke Divinity School.

As the pastor of Oak Church since 2014, Rev. Breslin has emphasized the church’s connection with, and service to, the Lakewood neighborhood where it is located. Oak Church hosts free weekly potlucks, which have become an essential source of food for some who attend. The church also puts on two popular neighborhood festivals each year—a pig picking in the fall and an Easter egg hunt in the spring—both of which bring together people from a wide range of backgrounds. With its emphasis on relationship-building and sense of place, the church describes its mission, using a phrase from the French theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, as “participating in the slow work of God.”

“For more than a decade, Pastor Chris has kept his focus on simple and direct service to a particular neighborhood,” a neighbor said in nominating Rev. Breslin. “That approach has shaped his life and his relationships. It is a great example of ‘the slow work of God.’”

For the last ten years, Rev. Breslin has worked at Duke Divinity School as a preceptor, teaching assistant, co-instructor, and field education theological reflection group facilitator. A graduate of Duke Divinity, he recently returned as a student in the school’s Doctor of Ministry program. In addition to his roles with Oak Church and Duke Divinity, he has served in volunteer and leadership roles with Durham nonprofits, including Bull City Little League, Housing for New Hope, and Reality Ministries.

The Chapel’s Humanitarian Service Award has its roots in a relationship between two Duke professors: Dr. C. Eric Lincoln, a religion professor, sociologist, and United Methodist minister, and Dr. George R. Parkerson, Jr., chairman of and a professor in the Department of Community and Family Medicine at Duke University School of Medicine. Both Dr. Parkerson and Dr. Lincoln exemplified lives in service of others. Dr. Lincoln’s life was dedicated to service through reconciliation, hospitality, care, mentoring, and ecumenism. Throughout his career, Dr. Parkerson’s concern for humanity has been revealed in his work in family medicine and as he has helped his students “see life whole.”

"This award grows out of the goodwill generated from a longtime friendship between two Duke professors, and that is also the fruit I see from the service of Laura and Pastor Chris," said Rev. Bruce Puckett, the Chapel's assistant dean, who led the award selection committee. "They invest deeply in individuals and groups, which gradually produces the seeds that strengthen a community--trust, hope, respect, and creative solutions to challenges."