VALLEY FORGE, PA (ABNS 2/11/11)—Rev. J. George Reed, executive director of the North Carolina Council of Churches, is the 2011 recipient of the Luke Mowbray Ecumenical Award.

The award will be presented at the Christian Unity Dinner on Friday, June 24, 2011 during the ABC Biennial in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Dr. Neville Callam, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, will be the guest speaker for the dinner.

The Luke Mowbray Ecumenical Award was established in 1975 at the request of Edna Mowbray, in memory of her late husband to recognize their commitment to achieve Christian unity. Its purpose is to give recognition to a member of an American Baptist church who has made an outstanding contribution in ecumenical work at the local, state, national or international level as either a volunteer or paid professional. The Mowbrays were faithful members of First Baptist Church in Pratt, Kansas.

Rev. Reed currently serves as executive director of the North Carolina Council of Churches, which is composed of 26 distinct judicatories from 17 denominations. Reed joined the North Carolina Council of Churches in 1996 as Legislative Program Associate and became Executive Director in 2000. Sensitive to the membership’s theological and racial diversity, he has stated that we must “recognize our similarities and be enriched by our differences and apply our faith teachings to contemporary life.”

Through his position, Reed has been involved with community events and activities touching on issues of immigration, health and wholeness, support for local farms, homelessness, support for returned veterans, and supporting those dealing with job loss.

Reed is a valued and sought after member of community organizations. He presently serves on boards of Our Children’s Place and the North Carolina Justice Center. He is a member of the Governor’s 2010 Complete Count Committee and the NC Institute of Medicine Health Benefits Exchange and Insurance Oversight Workgroup. He has served on the boards of North Carolinians Against Gun Violence, Wake County Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies, COMMIT to a Healthier Raleigh, NC ASSIST, and NC Baptist Employees Credit Union.

As a member of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, Raleigh, North Carolina, Reed has served on the Deacon Council and Coordinating Council. He presently is on the Adult Education Committee and co-teaches an adult church school class.

Reed is a graduate of Florida State University, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville and the University of Virginia Law School. Before coming to the North Carolina Council of Churches he was pastor of the Mountain Plain Baptist Church, Mechums River, Virginia and the director of Citizenship Education and World Hunger for the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.

Reed’s wife, Susan, is the Community Resource Connections coordinator for Wake County. They have one son, Joe, a graduate of Davidson College now serving as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Marine Corps.

American Baptist Churches is one of the most diverse Christian denominations today, with 5,500 local congregations comprised of 1.3 million members, across the United States and Puerto Rico, all engaged in God’s mission around the world.