The General Assembly Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations (GACEIR) is now accepting nominations for the 2022 Service Recognition Award.
Nominations for exemplary ecumenical and interreligious service are due January 30, 2022.
Any person or group wishing to submit a nomination may complete the form below and email it, along with any supporting materials, to Sherri Hunter, Program Assistant for Ecumenical Relations in the Office of the General Assembly.
Click here for complete service award information.
Click here for form and submission instructions.
According to GACEIR, the Ecumenical and Interreligious Service Recognition Awards are “a public acknowledgement of the significant service to the causes of Christian unity and interreligious relations rendered by individuals, congregations and presbyteries.”
The awards are made in every General Assembly year and announced to the whole church during the assembly. The online-only format of the 224th General Assembly meant that 2020 Service Recognitions were presented to recipients through the mail and highlighted virtually.
Plans for next summer’s 225th General Assembly are still shaping up, but Dianna Wright, Director of Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations in the Office of the General Assembly, hopes that recipients will be honored during the ecumenical worship service.
“These awards celebrate the work we are doing to accomplish God’s will for us to live together as the people of God,” Wright said. “They affirm that we need each other and that we are all in this life together.”
Individuals, congregations and presbyteries can be nominated for the service recognition awards.
According to GACEIR, “The nomination must state clearly why the nominee should be selected, how the nominee meets the criteria (listed fully on the nominating form) and what difference the [nominee’s] reported action or activity has made with respect to the visible unity of the Church or nurtured interfaith relations.”
The General Assembly intends the Ecumenical and Interreligious Service Recognitions to “demonstrate that Christians ought to be in relationship with people of other religions” and help and encourage “those within the Church who are looking for practical examples of ways the PC(USA) can move beyond affirmation to action in manifesting … unity in Jesus Christ.”
Award recipients “bridge the gaps between the local and the global” and between “individual congregations and the denomination.”
Award recipients also “show creativity or innovation” and present a model for service other groups and individuals can adapt to their purposes.
Learn More
General Assembly Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations
2020 Service Recognition Recipients
Ecumenical Relations in the PC(USA)