Pat Lovell presented with 2023 ELCIC Leadership Award

ELCIC

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July 2, 2023

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On Saturday evening, the ELCIC Leadership Award was presented to Pat Lovell of the Eastern Synod.

Introduced in 2017 as a part of the ELCIC’s commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, the award is given to an individual – rostered or lay – who demonstrates leadership and is committed to advancing the mission and ministry of the ELCIC.

“Tonight, we honour an individual whose involvement in the church truly represents what it means to be a leaderthroughout all expressions of the ELCIC,” said Trina Gallop Blank, Assistant to the National Bishop for Communications and Resource Generation, during the award presentation. “[Pat] is an embodied expression of God’s grace, and she is a most deserving recipient of this distinguished award.”

“Not only is Pat a great leader,” added ELCIC National Bishop Susan Johnson, “but I think she has just about the biggest heart of anyone I know.”

Lovell is just the third recipient of the ELCIC Leadership Award. She joins recipients Don Storch (2017) and Carolyn Ethier (2019).

“I am honored and deeply humbled to receive this leadership award, for work that I sincerely enjoy and deeply care about,” said Lovell, addressing delegates as she accepted the award.

Lovell shared with delegates a quote from Maya Angelou that was a guiding principle for her, “when you are kind to others, it not only changes you, but it changes the world.”

A member of St. Philip Evangelical Lutheran Church in Etobioke, Ontario, Lovell has served the wider church with distinction in numerous ways.

She has held various roles on boards and committees at both the Synodical and National levels:

Local Arrangements Committee Chair for the ELCIC National Convention
Member of the Eastern Synod Committee for Theological Education and Leadership
Member of the Eastern Synod Council
Member of ELCIC National Church Council
ELCIC member of the Anglican Church of Canada Council of General Synod
Canadian Council of Churches Governing Board
ELCIC Racial Justice Committee

Pat is also a recipient of an Eastern Synod Leadership Award for Outstanding Service to the Wider Church.

Matthew 10:40-42

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Rewards

40 “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ⁴¹Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous, ⁴²and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

John 15:12-17

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. ¹³No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing, but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. ¹⁶You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. ¹⁷I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

John 21:15-19

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Jesus and Peter

15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” ¹⁶A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” ¹⁷He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. ¹⁸Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” ¹⁹(He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”

Luke 11:33-36

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

The Light of the Body

33 “No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a bushel basket; rather, one puts it on the lampstand so that those who enter may see the light. ³⁴Your eye is the lamp of your body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but if it is unhealthy, your body is full of darkness. ³⁵Therefore consider whether the light in you is not darkness. ³⁶But if your whole body is full of light, with no part of it in darkness, it will be as full of light as when a lamp gives you light with its rays.”

Matthew 8:1-4

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Jesus Cleanses a Man

8 When Jesus had come down from the mountain, great crowds followed him, ²and there was a man with a skin disease who came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” ³He stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing. Be made clean!” Immediately his skin disease was cleansed. ⁴Then Jesus said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”