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Robert Bell

Robert Bell

Robert Holmes Bell Jr. (born August 23, 1970) is a best-selling author, Christian speaker, and the founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church located in Grandville, Michigan. He is also the featured speaker in a series of spiritual short films called NOOMA. Bell and his wife, Kristen, have two boys and a newborn baby girl and live in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Bell and his wife moved from California to Grand Rapids to be close to family and on invitation to study under pastor Ed Dobson. He handled many of the preaching duties for the Saturday Night service at Calvary Church. Bell announced to Calvary that he would be branching out on his own to start a new kind of community and he would call it "Mars Hill" after the Greek site where the apostle Paul told a group, "For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you."^[3]

In February 1999, Bell founded Mars Hill Bible Church, with the church originally meeting in a school gym in Wyoming, Michigan. Within a year the church was given a shopping mall in Grandville, Michigan, and purchased the surrounding land. In July 2000 the 3,500 "grey chair" facility opened its doors. As of 2005, an estimated 11,000 people attend the two "gatherings" on Sundays at 9 and 11 AM.^[4] His teachings at Mars Hill inspired the popular "Love Wins" bumper sticker, and the congregation freely distributes these stickers away after services.^[5]

In order to maintain balance in his life, Bell maintains his Fridays as a personal sabbath, where he does not allow contact by electronic means, and has all pastoral duties transferred to other Mars Hill pastors.^[6]

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