Pul­pit and mar­ket place min­is­ters of the Chris­t­ian faith were recog­nised for their out­stand­ing ser­vice at the in­au­gur­al Awards for Chris­t­ian Ex­cel­lence at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA), Port-of-Spain, last week­end. The cer­e­mo­ny was fa­cil­i­tat­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coun­cil of Evan­gel­i­cal Church­es and the Full Gospel Busi­ness­men Fel­low­ship. It was in com­mem­o­ra­tion of its Ju­bilee 2012 se­ries of events to cel­e­brate this coun­try's 50 years of In­de­pen­dence. Dr Al­is­ter Alexan­der, Apos­tle Bertril Baird, Rev Mar­garet El­cock, Clive Dot­tin, Avonelle Hec­tor Joseph, Ran­jie Nanan, Dr Maria Re­my, posthu­mous­ly Win­ston Bal­los­ingh and Rev Tur­nel Nel­son were just a few of the awardees. Pre­sen­ters in­clud­ed Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment Prakash Ra­mad­har, Don­na Cox, Ali­cia Hospedales, Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas, Sen­a­tor Fazal Karim and Rodger Samuel

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Samuel al­so brought greet­ings on be­half of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Among the artistes en­ter­tain­ing the size­able au­di­ence were Sean Daniell, Vanes­sa Brig­gs and Nicole Bal­los­ingh. Bish­op Mau­rice Jones, pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer of the Coun­cil of Evan­gel­i­cal Church­es, hopes that young peo­ple would be in­spired by the achieve­ments of the awardees and in turn, they would con­tribute to min­istry them­selves. "This is al­so a tes­ti­mo­ny that the church is alive and rel­e­vant," said Jones. He added that the Coun­cil is look­ing at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of hav­ing the awards every two years.