The Rev. Dr. Marvin A. McMickle Receives Ralph Garfield Schell Presidential Award for Excellence in Ministry
(nomination was submitted by Cleveland Baptist Association Interim Executive Minister,
the Rev. Dr. James Oldham)
Ministers Council President Alice Davis has selected the Rev. Dr. Marvin A. McMickle as recipient of the 2006 Ralph Garfield Schell Presidential Award for Excellence in Ministry. The award was announced at the concluding banquet of the Ministers Council Senate on August 15.
Dr. McMickle has served as the Pastor of the Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio, since 1987. During that time the church has thrived and become one of the single most influential African-American congregations in the city. Antioch has pioneered an AIDS prevention and treatment program with special focus on the African-American community. In addition to its traditional Sunday morning worship service, the church has instituted Saturday evening and early Sunday morning services using alternate formats that are reaching new generations and communities of people for Christ. The Antioch church continually calls forth persons for the gospel ministry, including two young men who have been ordained in the past several years, and a young woman who will be recommended for ordination examination in the very near future.
Dr. McMickle is one of the most accomplished preachers in the nation. He serves as professor of preaching at Ashland Theological Seminary and is in constant demand as a speaker nationwide. He has agreed to be the Bible Study leader for the 2007 Central Sectional Black Church Education Conference in Columbus.
The Antioch Baptist Church is among the leaders in American Baptist Mission Support. Last year the church placed second among the thirty-eight Cleveland Baptist Association congregations in ABMS. Antioch was a leading contributor to both tsunami and hurricane relief efforts last year, and consistently participates in all four national ABC offerings. Dr. McMickle is currently serving as a member of the CBA Board of Trustees and the CBA Department of Ministry and he also chairs the CBA Department of Metropolitan Ministries.
Dr. McMickle is well-known to American Baptists as a prolific and insightful author. He has authored six books for Judson Press in the past six years, including the most recent release of The Star Book on Preaching. Rebecca Irwin-Diehl of Judson Press comments on his selection: "It's always an honor for Judson to support the Ralph Garfield Schell Presidential Award, and this year it's particularly gratifying given that the recipient is our own Marvin A. McMickle, one of our best-selling authors in recent years. For his scholarship, his preaching ministry, and for his Christian character, we celebrate him as the 2006 winner." His newest title, This Far by Faith: An African American History for Youth, is scheduled to release in December of this year.
In addition to pastoring, teaching, mentoring, and writing, Dr. McMickle has still found time to serve the larger community in positions like Shaker Heights School Board member and co-organizer of the WE BELIEVE CLEVELAND initiative to promote a public agenda of justice, compassion, and tolerance.
Dr. Marvin A. McMickle is the consummate model of Excellence in Ministry and the Ministers Council is pleased to honor this profoundly deserving recipient of the award. . In recognition of the award he will receive a book certificate from Judson Press and his name will be added to the plaque of recipients in the Ministers Council office at the Mission Center.
The President's Award was instituted in 1996, and called The Ralph Garfield Schell Prize. It is the recognition of a member of a local Ministers Council who seems to be extraordinarily faithful in carrying out the principles of the Ministers Council Code of Ethics. The award is announced annually, usually at the closing banquet of the American Baptist Ministers Council Senate.
The process used to obtain candidates for this recognition included requesting nominations from the President of every regional Ministers Council and from the Regional Executive Ministers. From that roster the national President makes a careful selection based on what seems outstanding to him or her. The award is named for Ralph Garfield Schell, who addressed the Northern Baptist Convention on June 22, 1935, in Colorado Springs, speaking on the theme, A Revitalized Ministry. He presented reports from the Committee on the Ministry and the Committee on the Organization of a Ministers Council. He then moved the adoption of the reports, which included the establishment of the Ministers Council, of which he became the first President.
Schell was Canadian-born in 1890, educated and privately tutored theologically in Ontario. He served Disciples Churches in both Sherwood and Toronto, Ontario; and for a period was bivocational, working as a Railway Engineer for the Toronto Harbor Commission. He continued serving a Disciples Church in Portland, Maine and in 1925 was called to the Jefferson Street Baptist Church in Biddeford, Maine. Later, for one year, he was on the staff of Boston's Tremont Temple Baptist Church. From 1928 to 1939 he was Pastor of Second Baptist Church, Chicago. Schell also served as Executive Secretary of the Illinois Baptist Convention for five years; and then for ten years as Pastor of Morgan Park Baptist Church, Chicago, from which he retired. In his retirement, R. G. Schell served on The World Council Assembly Committee; The Chicago Baptist Association; The Church Federation of Greater Chicago; and The Board of Directors of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society.