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Rob Bell, 41, the founding pastor of Mars Hill church in western Michigan, bid adieu to his congregation in a 5000-word epistle about grace and peace, which he preached Sunday to thousands in the converted strip mall that ...
Rob Bell, 41, the founding pastor of Mars Hill church in western Michigan, bid adieu to his congregation in a 5,000-word epistle about grace and peace, which he preached Sunday to thousands in the converted strip mall that has housed the "Jesus community" for a decade.
Earlier this autumn, Bell announced he would be leaving Mars Hill and moving with his family to California to pursue new creative and spiritual adventures, including a television show that is in development. Sunday (Dec. 18) Bell preached his final sermon at the 10,000-strong congregation in Grandville, Mich.
By G. Jeffrey MacDonald Religion News Service (RNS) For pastors with ambitions to reach huge audiences, there's often no better platform than the megachurch, which...
By G. Jeffrey MacDonald Religion News Service (RNS) For pastors with ambitions to reach huge audiences, there's often no better platform than the megachurch, which...
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8 hours ago( 1:37 AM) I think he is making a great move. Prime Time t.v. with episodes where God is not hidden or ridiculed but brought into daily life where most kids are growing up and most adults are relaxing: in front of the tube 24/7 is a wonderful idea. Undoubtly there will be people reached that never would of been reached before. God doesn't have to be stuck in the back door a church. PRIME TIME is where God should be.. not hidden in some cable channel nobody watches. This may be the only exposure some people will have to "GOD".
17 hours ago( 4:51 PM) You can't blame him, he wanted to make Christianity slightly less repulsive. Who could have guessed that it would make the rest of the Christians angry?
18 hours ago( 3:58 PM) Off to make a fortune in California, where he will find favorable reception to the gospel of "be anything you want to be, believe or don't, makes no difference".
18 hours ago( 3:51 PM) Halfway through the ee cummingsesque hipster prose, he freehand translates Jesus's words on the cross as, "My God, my God, why have you screwed me?" But didn't he say near the beginning, "
The whole sermon seems an ode to form, to shape, to relevance and being revolutionary, not because you have anything new to say, but because being revolutionary is Hip and So Very Now.
The whole sermon says,"thanks, be nice and don't get hung up on specifics." If all Jesus came to say was, "don't judge, work hard, say yes to whatever version of me you find relevant" then what is here that you won't find at the Rotary club or even the local Humanist Association? If this is the church that Bell has been growing, the Unitarians/Universalists do it better; but I guess many of them are old and don't have cool glasses and vests. My hope that somewhere at Mars Hill is a group of believers who know a little church history, some actual theology, and have some real Biblical background that can lead this church someplace that the fallen world won't gladly lead it. Time will tell, I suppose.
21 hours ago(12:56 PM) Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn't worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused.
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