wfn.org | UMNS# 048-Singer, scholar receive top evangelism award

["NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Singer, scholar receive top evangelism award

Jan. 26, 2006

NOTE: Photographs are available at http://umns.umc.org.

By Linda Green*

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - A renowned singer of sacred music and a
scholar who has spent his life exploring the depths of the Christian
faith are recipients of one of the highest awards in evangelism.

Bill Mann and the Rev. George E. Morris are this year's Philip Award
winners, chosen by the National Association of United Methodist
Evangelists.

The association, affiliated with the United Methodist Board of
Discipleship, presented the awards at the annual Congress on Evangelism,
held in early January in Atlanta.

The award, named for the apostle Philip, has been presented to two
people annually since 1974. Past recipients have included the Rev. Billy
Graham, the Rev. Joe Hale, Evelyn Laycock, the Rev. Walter Kimbrough,
and the late Bishop Earl Hunt Jr. and Harry Denman.

Mann of Richardson, Texas, often referred to as the "Golden Voice of
Methodism," is an international artist who has performed in concert
halls in England, Scotland and Ireland as part of the Billy Graham
Evangelistic Association.

Born in Bessemer, Ala., Mann has been singing since age 10 and has
acquired a reputation "for being one of America's greatest singers of
hymns, gospel songs and religious music," the association said. He has
used his "fine tenor voice and keen interpretation of all music" to sing
in concert, evangelistic campaigns and ecumenical gatherings as well as
in more than 3,000 churches since 1946, the association added.

His sacred music ministry allowed him to perform with musical greats
such as Ethel Waters, Mahalia Jackson, Henry Mancini, George Beverly
Shea, Jerome Hines and many others. He has also shared ministry with
United Methodist bishops and other critically acclaimed preachers. He
calls singing for Helen Keller one of the highlights of his career.

For the past seven years, Morris, of Canton, Ga., has served as the
Hankey Senior Professor of World Evangelism for the World Methodist
Council.

"Truly George E. Morris is in the great tradition of Philip, as he has
given vast, extensive ministry to that of sharing the good news of the
gospel through the word, deed and sign so that the world may know Jesus
Christ," the association said.

He has been an ordained United Methodist pastor for nearly 50 years and
has authored several evangelism books, including Let the Redeemed of the
Lord Say So! - coauthored with the Rev. H. Eddie Fox - and a recent
publication titled The Mystery and Meaning of Christian Conversation.
Along with Fox, he developed the Faith-Sharing New Testament, a
"Methodist-Wesleyan Personal Worker's New Testament" in 1994. That
resource has sold 50,000 copies in English and is published in 37
languages around the world.

Morris served on the former Methodist Board of Evangelism under the
leadership of Harry Denman and on the United Methodist Board of
Discipleship. For more than 16 years, he was the Distinguished Arthur J.
Moore Professor of Evangelism at United Methodist-related Candler School
of Theology, Atlanta. While in that position, he became the founding
director of the World Methodist Evangelism Institute, the primary arm of
World Methodist Evangelism for training and developing indigenous
evangelists on every continent.

The association said Morris "is immersed in the Holy Scriptures, shaped
by Wesleyan theology, and is one of our greatest Methodist evangelists."

*Green is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in
Nashville, Tenn.

News media contact: Linda Green, (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

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United Methodist News Service
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http://umns.umc.org