DETROIT, MI (June 23, 2017) – Pastor Bill and Marva Watts were presented with the Irving C. Lambert Award today at the 132nd Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Covenant Church for their service to urban ministry for more than 40 years.
The couple planted Gospel Way Bible Church as a nondenominational congregation on Chicago’s South Side in 1977. Two years later, after being introduced to the ECC, they joined the denomination and moved the church, which became Gospel Way Covenant Church, to the city’s southeast side.
“We read the Covenant Affirmations and thought, ‘That is us!’” Marva said in an interview.
Their contributions to the broader Covenant have included serving on the Executive Board, the Board of Church Growth and Evangelism, the Board of Covenant Women, and the Commissions on Urban and Ethnic Ministries and Covenant History, and helping to revise the Covenant Constitution.
In Chicago they developed ministries of compassion and mercy that ranged from addressing the needs of people caught in addiction to establishing an alternative school during a teachers’ strike.
Through his work with Prison Fellowship, Bill served people who once had been incarcerated as well as people still in prison or jail. In 2002, he became the first African American to serve as the chief chaplain for the Illinois Department of Corrections.
Marva has received numerous academic, humanitarian, and professional awards including Distinguished Professor Award and Woman of the Year Award while serving on the faculty of Malcolm X College, where she taught physiology.
Marva’s interest in science was sparked when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik—the first satellite—into space. “I was in high school and thought, ‘I really want to be a part of that.’” She developed a special interest in physiology during her last year of college.
“That opened a whole new world to me,” she said. “As I saw how everything functioned together, that just opened up God’s handiwork to me.”
Both Marva and Bill wanted others to see and experience the body working together through the ministry of reconciliation. That has included establishing youth exchange programs in partnership with Covenant churches in Pomeroy, Iowa, and Aurora, Nebraska. They also developed a sister church relationship with Bethesda Covenant Church in Rockford, Illinois.
Marva said she has seen the Covenant’s commitment to urban ministry grow substantially since 1979. At the time, she said, the interest did not seem as strong as it could have been, but, she added, “Since then there has been just an explosion of inner city and cross-cultural ministries that I’ve been blessed to be a part of and see the denomination take a lead role.”
Bill suffered a severe stroke in 2014, but he was determined to attend the Annual Meeting. About a dozen people made the journey to Detroit with the couple to celebrate with them, as did the gathering, which gave them a standing ovation.
