The Rev. John L. McCullough speaks after receiving the United Methodist Council of Bishops 2012 Ecumenical Award during a May 1 session of the United Methodist General Conference in Tampa, Florida. Photo: Paul Jeffrey/UMNS
Editors: Downloadable high-res photo of Rev. McCullough.
TAMPA, Fla. – The Rev. John L. McCullough, executive director and chief executive officer of humanitarian agency Church World Service, was honored Tuesday evening (May 1) by his denomination the United Methodist Church for outstanding global ecumenical leadership.
A tribute bestowed every four years, McCullough received the Council of Bishops Ecumenical Award for 2012 during this year’s international United Methodist General Conference, being held (April 24 May 4) in Tampa, Fla.
Presenting the citation, President of the UMC General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns and Bishop of the California-Pacific Annual Conference Western Jurisdiction Mary Ann Swenson described McCullough as “an amazing advocate for ecumenism,” under whose leadership Church World Service has gained a reputation as an innovator for its programs worldwide.
She cited McCullough’s lead in CWS’s multi-year Africa Initiative, which in 2006 sponsored an Africa Summit that brought 53 church leaders from Africa to meet with U.S. policymakers in Washington, D.C.
Swenson said that McCullough had led his agency to support humanitarian causes at the sites of major humanitarian crises, including a delegation to Guinea to assist the Christian Council of Guinea in the face of that country’s civil upheaval; leading a delegation of historic American black church leaders to Israel and Palestine; and assistance in helping regional faith leaders negotiate peace to end civil war in Liberia.
Describing CWS’s programs working with vulnerable Roma people in Europe, she cited McCullough as saying, “No one should be forced to accept displacement” as a permanent condition.
An ordained minister in The United Methodist Church, McCullough served pastorates in the United States and Kenya and held leadership positions at the denomination’s global mission agency before joining CWS in 2000.
Receiving the award from Bishop Rosemarie Wenner of Germany, McCullough praised the work of the United Methodist Church General Conference and the UMC people for their ecumenical commitment and spirit. He acknowledged the challenges of reaching consensus “just as United Methodists,” but encouraged them to “Imagine trying to reach consensus with 36 additional communions,” the Reformed, Anglican, Orthodox, Peace and Historic Black churches who support the worldwide mission of Church World Service.
That mission, McCullough said, is to eradicate hunger and poverty and promote peace and justice on a local and global scale. “Straight forward but hardly simple,” he said. “Yet, God calls us to seek and discern moments of wise agreement on these very complex and difficult issues that confront our humanity and our faith.”
McCullough told the UMC gathering in Tampa, “This must be the witness to our faith, that as long as society shortchanges children and keeps families mired in poverty, and as long as there is injustice, our voices will never be silenced.”
He underscored the power of faith-based groups working ecumenically as an important means of “satisfying the pangs of people who are hungry, of children undernourished, and communities that are food insecure.”
McCullough has been a member of the White House Task Force on Global Poverty and Development. In April 2010, he met with President Obama as part of a group of African American leaders and in November 2010 as a member of an ecumenical delegation pressing international concerns and the urgent need to manage poverty and hunger in the United States.
He has been at the forefront of Church World Service’s Enough for All initiative, advocating for human rights, the needs of the hungry and displaced and the empowerment of civil society.
He was the key spokesperson for Church World Service’s high profile opposition to the U.S. pre-emptive strike against Iraq and against military control of humanitarian response within Iraq. Shortly before the war, he participated in a high-level humanitarian mission to Iraq sponsored by the Center for Social and Economic Rights.
As architect of the Church World Service Africa Initiative, McCullough presented to members of the United Nations HABITAT community his vision to guide the establishment of School Safe Zones, working in collaboration with the Kenyan government to establish secure, stimulating and nurturing environments for the country’s youth – a program that has since expanded to other countries.
McCullough told the United Methodist General Conference and Council of Bishops gathering, “It is in joining efforts that we find the cup of justice rather than leaving people thirsting for basic human rights. Like many others, I too will not settle for people being uprooted and displaced from human dignity and a place of peace just because they were not born with the ‘right’ DNA or ascribe to those who think they were.
“Yes, God calls us to end the violence of poverty that is wrought on humanity.”
McCullough travels between the strategic planning strata of Church World Service’s 2020 Vision process to walking with community volunteers around America in CWS’s nationwide CROP Hunger Walks that raise funds for American and global hunger programs.
He said the UMC ecumenical award was a recognition of a call to ministry that is nurtured by his ecumenical colleagues, the many congregations he has served, by his CWS colleagues, “by untold grassroots activists who inspire me with their incredible hope and determination, by my partner in life and ministry, JoAnn, who, along with our children, encourages me every day towards that still more excellent way, and by our God to whom I try to be faithful and who has been faithful to me without failing.”
Bishop Sharon Zimmerman Rader, Retired, Ecumenical Officer for UMC’s Council of Bishops, presided over the award presentation.
The UMC Council of Bishops’ ecumenical award was last granted in 2008, when long-time United Methodist ecumenist Clare J. Chapman, then-Chief Operating Officer of the National Council of Churches (NCC), received the award for her exceptional leadership.
This year’s United Methodist conference has attracted 988 delegates from around the world.