Well, the response I've been getting about Rob Bell (from at least four people just recently) is that he is "out there" on some things. Therefore, I should be pretty careful.
My response has been out where? Such generalities are not helpful to anyone. If there is a problem, define it.
I am not pretending that he is always right. Only my Mom carries that honor (at least, that is what she tells me). I can point to a couple things off the top of my head that I did not think were quite right.
For instance, even though I did find the trampoline illustration in Velvet Elvis helpful in some ways, it fell short in showing how some "springs" are more important than others. (The doctrine of forgiveness is bigger than how often we take the Lord's Supper, for instance). And some are essential. (The resurrection of Jesus, for instance).
However, the same could be said for any teacher I've ever listened to for very long (especially yours truly). We all fail somewhere. I can't tell you how often I groan on Sunday afternoon about something I said Sunday morning. I long to be perfect, alas I'm not.
Overall, I think he is a pretty sound Bible teacher.
He taught five sessions, three of them were 'how-to' construct a sermon. Here are some things that I can tell you about his preaching from hearing those sessions.
1. He is an expository preacher.
Rob Bell always starts his sermon preparations with the text. I already knew this. But he showed how he approaches the passage. He tries to memorize the text way in advance so that it can "live with" him for a long time before he preaches. He focuses on the words, studies their linguistic origins, examines how they are used elsewhere. He researches the backgrounds. He works a passage hard before he starts assembling the sermon, and it shows.
2. He is passionately in love with God's Word.
You can see this in his sermon prep. It also show in his body language when he talks about the text.
3. He is passionate about God's work.
It would be interesting enough for me if he just showed the neat things he discovered in his research. But he works the sermon all the way to applications.
4. He works really hard on his messages.
This was the most striking thing to me. I always assumed he was just really gifted as a communicator. He is that, but wow, he works hard. He showed us his process. Every part of his sermon is the result of a lot thought a preparation.
5. He still believes the sermon is a very powerful tool in the post-modern world.
Many post-modern church leaders are giving up on sermons. They see the method as dated and ineffective. Not so with Rob. Though he doesn't often use the force of the 'bully pulpit, preferring to give the first words of a discussion rather than the final word. (This very different approach is why I think he tends to be misunderstood).
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Hey Shannon. I am reading a book right now called "Why We're Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be)" by Kevin DeYoung & Ted Kluck. DeYoung is a senior pastor at a church in East Lansing. I read another book by him about God's will (really good also).
Anyways, the book I am reading now talks about Rob Bell, along with a bunch of others. These two guys basically read a ton of books by emergent leaders. They see a lot of good things going on with this movement, but are also cautious of some of the emergent ideas. So far, it's been very informative (since I really knew nothing of the emgergent church until a couple of months ago!)
I thought maybe this would help you see why some people are freaking out about Bell! :)
thanks for reading and sharing, Cherene.
So how long does he prepare his sermons in advance? Obviously I'm assuming he doesn't preach every week.
I think several problems with Rob are:
1) He's "reclaiming" everything. As if everything now is bad and whatever he's reclaiming is just handed down from God. It was all rejected for a reason. It's the whole "those were the good ole days" attitude.
2)I heard someone sum him up well: "Rob Bell seems like he'd rather be a Rabbi than a minister."
3) He tends to draw illustrations out (the trampoline) to a fault.
4) He charges a heck of alot of money for his speaking.
5)He leads people to believe more than is true about some of his experiences and study. Ie. He really exaggerated the events surrounding the founding of Mars Hill. "We didn't even have any advertising". Technically true. But, the church he came from advertised it for him WITH BILLBOARDS and he took several hundred if not a thousand people from that church to start it. I've also read some critics of his accuracy when talking about OT and rabbinical practices. Some of it seems to have been made up out of air.
That, probably more than anything else, has just left me very distrustful and suspicious of everything he does.
Barry, the way he does it he is always preparing for several messages. But when he writes, he usually has too much material (a rare problem for me), and edits and rearranges until he is happy with it(something I could stand to do more of).
As for your criticisms; Number 1 always annoys me. It's so common in teachers that I tend to just roll my eyes at it. Numbers 2 and 3, I don't really get.
Number 4 has some validity. $20 for one lesson? That's bananas. Yet his Sunday sermons are free online (can't say that for everyone) and his conference was the best value I could find.
Number 5 is the one that concerns me. Not the part about marketing, because the point was more about his own reluctance to use it. The other church doing it for him does not really undermine that point for me.
It's where he gets all his information. That's what's good about his books, all the footnotes. But I wish his sermons came with the same things. Making things up out of thin air is a pretty huge accusation, though. I'd need some evidence of that.
All that said, I've spent more time and thought critiquing him than any other preacher or teacher. And I still think most of the criticism out there is irrational, uninformed and out of line with godliness. Rob has his flaws, but I still think he is a voice worth listening to.
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