Candace Cameron Bure Celebrates ‘God’s Grace and Love’ after MovieGuide Award Win

Candace Cameron Bure and Jesse Hutch each won honors for their individual performances in television while the movies Cabrini and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever won in major film categories during the 32nd annual MovieGuide Awards broadcast on Great American Family Thursday. Bure won the Grace Actress Award (television) for her performance in A Christmas Less Traveled, while Hutch won the Grace Actor Award (television) for his role in Christmas Under the Northern Lights. The Grace Award is given to an actor or actress who "exemplifies God's grace and mercy toward us as human beings through their outstanding performance," according to MovieGuide.

The MovieGuide Awards is an annual event that recognizes the best in faith and family entertainment. 

"I think about what grace means, and God says that, 'My grace is sufficient for you.' Grace is something that I get that I don't deserve," Bure said while accepting the award. 

Bure thanked the industry for the opportunity "to continue to do the craft that I love" and to "share that message of God's grace and God's love."

A Christmas Less Traveled also won the Epiphany Prize for television, which is given to popular entertaining movies and television programs that are wholesome, spiritually uplifting, inspirational, redemptive, and moral.

Hutch, too, referenced God's grace when he accepted the award.

"I recognize, through God's grace, that no matter what's in your bank account or what side you lean politically, or what your family history is, or what you've done in the past or what you think you're going to do in the future, one thing that brings us together is the heart that God put in us," he said.

Beatrice Schneider won the Grace Actress Award (movies) for The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, while Joel Smallbone took home the Grace Actor Award (movies) for Unsung Hero.

Following is a complete list of winners:

Best Family Films - The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (2024)

Best Mature Audience Films - Young Woman And The Sea

Best Family Television - A Little Women's Christmas

Best Mature Audience Television - The Baxters: Episodes 1.1-1.8

Epiphany Prize Movies - Cabrini

Epiphany Prize Television - A Christmas Less Traveled

Faith & Freedom Award Movies - Reagan

Faith & Freedom Award Television - NCIS: Episode 22:4: "Sticks & Stones"

Aletheia: Documentary Award - Americans With No Address

Grace Award Actress (Movies): Beatrice Schneider (The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (2024))

Grace Award Actor (Movies): Joel David Smallbone (Unsung Hero)

Grace Award Actress (Television): Candace Cameron Bure (A Christmas Less Traveled)

Grace Award Actor (Television): Jesse Hutch (Christmas Under The Northern Lights)

Photo Credit: ©MovieGuide Awards

Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel. 

Originally published March 07, 2025.