Rob Bell

Instant New York Times Bestseller Rob Bell, the beloved author of Love Wins and What We Talk About When We Talk About God, goes deep into the Bible to show how it is more revelatory, revolutionary, and relevant than we ever imagined—and offers a cogent argument for why we need to look at it in a fresh, new way. In Love Wins, Rob Bell confronted the troubling questions that many people of faith were afraid to ask about heaven, hell, fate, and faith. Using the same inspired, inquisitive approach, he now turns to our most sacred book, the Bible. What Is the Bible? provides insights and answers that make clear why the Bible is so revered and what makes it truly inspiring and essential to our lives. Rob takes us deep into actual passages to reveal the humanity behind the Scriptures. You cannot get to the holy without going through the human, Rob tells us. When considering a passage, we shouldn’t ask "Why did God say . . .?" To get to the heart of the Bible’s meaning, we should be "What’s the story that’s unfolding here and why did people find it important to tell it? What was it that moved them to record these words? What was happening in the world at that time? What does this passage/story/poem/verse/book tell us about how people understood who they were and who God was at that time?" In asking these questions, Rob goes beyond the one-dimensional question of "is it true?" to reveal the Bible’s authentic transformative power. Rob addresses the concerns of all those who see the Bible as God’s Word but are troubled by the ethical dilemmas, errors, and inconsistencies in Scripture. With What Is the Bible?, he recaptures the Good Book’s magic and reaffirms its power and inspiration to shape and inspire our lives today.

The popular pastor and New York Times bestselling author of Love Wins and What We Talk About When We Talk About God shows us how to pursue and realize our dreams, live in the moment, and joyfully do the things that make us come alive.Each of us was created for something great—we just need to figure out what it is and find the courage to do it. Whether it’s writing the next great American novel, starting a business, or joining a band, Rob Bell wants to help us make those dreams become reality. Our path is ours and ours alone to pursue, he reminds us, and in doing so, we derive great joy because we are living our passions.How to Be Here lays out concrete steps we can use to define and follow our dreams, interweaving engaging stories, lessons from biblical figures, insights gleaned from Rob’s personal experience, and practical advice. Rob gives you the support and insight you need to silence your critics, move from idea to action, take the first step, find joy in the work, persevere through hard times, and surrender to the outcome.Like Stephen Pressfield’s classic The War of Art, How to Be Here will inspire readers to seek the lives they were created to lead.

In Love Wins, bestselling author, international teacher, and speaker Rob Bell (Velvet Elvis, Drops Like Stars) addresses one of the most controversial issues of faith—hell and the afterlife—arguing, would a loving God send people to eternal torment forever?Rob Bell is an electrifying, unconventional pastor whom Time magazine calls “a singular rock star in the church world,” with millions viewing his NOOMA videos.With searing insight, Bell puts hell on trial with a hopeful message—eternal life doesn’t start when we die; it starts right now. And ultimately, Love Wins.

We have to test everything. I thank God for anybody anywhere who is pointing people to the mysteries of God. But those people would all tell you to think long and hard about what they are saying and doing and creating. Test it. Probe it. Do that to this book. Don't swallow it uncritically. Think about it. Wrestle with it. Just because I'm a Christian and I'm trying to articulate a Christian worldview doesn't mean I've got it nailed. I'm contributing to the discussion. God has spoken, and the rest is commentary, right?

From Rob Bell, the author of the phenomenal New York Times bestseller Love Wins and a Christian pastor named by Time Magazine as one of the most influential people in 2011, comes Sex God, an enlightening exploration of sexuality and spirituality. With profound beauty and insight, Bell addresses the truism that we can’t talk about ourselves as sexual beings without asking who made us that way. For progressive Christians and readers who enjoy the writings of Donald Miller, N.T. Wright, Brian McLaren and Timothy Keller, Rob Bell is a pioneer among those seeking a new kind of Christian teaching.

Rob Bell's bestselling book Love Wins struck a powerful chord with a new generation of Christians who are asking the questions church leaders have been afraid to touch. His new book, What We Talk About When We Talk About God, will continue down this path, helping us with the ultimate big-picture issue: how do we know God? Love Wins was a Sunday Times bestseller that created a media storm, launching Bell as a national religious voice who is reinvigorating what it means to be religious and a Christian today. He is one of the most influential voices in the Christian world, and now his new book, What We Talk About When We Talk About God, is poised to blow open the doors on how we understand God. Bell believes we need to drop our primitive, tribal views of God and instead understand the God who wants us to become who we were designed to be, a God who created a universe of quarks and quantum string dynamics, but who also gives meaning to why new-born babies and stories of heroes and sacrifice inspire in us a deep reverence. What We Talk About When We Talk About God will reveal that God is not in need of repair to catch him up with today's world so much as we need to discover the God who goes before us and beckons us forward. A book full of mystery, controversy, and reverence, What We Talk About When We Talk About God has fans and critics alike anxiously awaiting, and promises not to disappoint.

There is a church not too far from us that recently added a $25 million addition to their building. Our local newspaper ran a front-page story not too long ago about a study revealing that one in five people in our city lives in poverty. This is a book about those two numbers.Jesus Wants to save Christians is a book about faith and fear, wealth and war, poverty, power, safety, terror, Bibles, bombs, and homeland insecurity.It's about empty empires and the truth that everybody's a priest. It's about oppression, occupation, and what happens when Christians support, animate and participate in the very things Jesus came to set people free from.It's about what it means to be a part of the church of Jesus in a world where some people fly planes into buildings while others pick up groceries in Hummers.

I’ve had a sense since I was youngthat there’s more going on here, thatthe world is not a cold, dead place,that it’s alive in some compelling andmysterious way.This book is about that sense. I’ve triedto listen to it, and follow it, and trust it.It’s been devastating at times, intoxicatingat others, heartbreaking and maddeningand euphoric——how do you make senseof this experience we’re having here onthis ball of rock hurtling through spaceat 67,000 miles an hour?There are big questions: Everythingis made of particles and atoms, and theuniverse has been expanding for thirteenbillion years?And then there are those other questions, about the people and places andevents that have shaped us.HOWEVER MASSIVE ANDCOSMIC IT ALL IS, IT’S ALSOREALLY, REALLY PERSONAL.AND SPIRITUAL.THAT’S THE WORD FOR IT.That’s the sense I’ve been followingfor a while now——this awareness thatthere’s something bigger happening inthe depth and complexity and struggleof life, something that connects us all,reminding us that it all matters and it’sall headed somewhere.Part memoir, part confession, partextended riff on the endlessly evolvingnature of reality, Everything Is Spiritualis an invitation to see what you’ve beena part of this whole time.

We plot. We plan. We assume things are going to go a certain way. And when they don't, we find ourselves in a new place---a place we haven't been before, a place we never would have imagined on our own. It is the difficult and the unexpected, and maybe even the tragic, that opens us up and frees us to see things in new ways. Many of the most significant moments in our lives come not because it all went right but because it all fell apart. Suffering does that. It hurts, but it also creates. This book is an exploration of the complex relationship between suffering and creativity, driven by the belief that there is art in the agony.

As he revolutionized traditional teaching on hell in the phenomenal New York Times bestseller Love Wins, Rob Bell now transforms how we understand and practice marriage in The Zimzum of Love, co-written with his wife, Kristen.Despite the divorce statistics, people are still committing to each other, instinctively believing and hoping that theirs is a sacred union that will last forever. Yet when these couples encounter problems, they often lack the resources that keep them connected to this greater mystery surrounding marriage.Rob and Kristin Bell introduce a startling new way of looking at marriage, The Zimzum of Love. Zimzum is a Hebrew term where God, in order to have a relationship with the world, contracts, creating space for the creation to exist. In marriage, zimzum is the dynamic energy field between two partners, in which each person contracts to allow the other to flourish. Mastering this field, this give and take of energy, is the secret to what makes marriage flourish.Rob and Kristin Bell are brutally honest about their own struggles, their ups and downs, as together they pass along what matters most for couples. In this wise book, they explore the secret of what makes a happy union—probing the mystery at the heart of the extraordinary emotional connection that binds two people. With his down-to-earth charm, a dose of whimsy, and memorable stories, Rob, writing with his wife Kristen, changes how we consider marriage, providing insight that can help all of us create satisfying and sacred unions of our own.

Heen Gru-Bares has been SERIES 5 for most of his adult life, traveling from planet to planet collecting data and filing reports for the CHAIRS who run the universe.And then he lands on the planet Firdus for his next assignment and he meetsBorns and Lan Zing and Ziga Mey and Dill Tudd and something unsettling begins to stir within him, something unnerving and profoundly disruptive. Out of all the planets he's been to over the decades he's been doing this job, what is it about this one particular planet Firdus that so subversively affects him like it does?And then Noon Yeah shows up and he learns that she's a SIGN 7,sent to Firdus to do a GRAINING because of his failure to executethe task at hand-it's more than he can bear as what he thoughtwas his life begins to unravel around him...Will Heen make it through this devastating turbulence?What will happen to Dill Tudd?And is all of this a set up, one of the symptoms of a larger malaise that willcontinue to spread through the entire universe unless someone doessomething to stop it?It's a galactic saga of struggle and survival.It's an interplanetary tale of love, loss, and bread.It's BOOK ONE of the WHERE'D YOU PARK YOUR SPACESHIP? Series.Welcome to Firdus.

For anyone who wants to delve deeper into Rob Bell’s bestselling Love Wins , the expansive and accessible Love Wins Companion offers scholarly support and critiques, resources for individuals, groups, and classes, and brand new material by Rob Bell himself. As Love Wins continues to become a touchstone for thousands of readers worldwide, controversy surrounds the book’s arguments. Author Brian D. McClaren wrote that with Love Wins “thousands of readers will find freedom and hope and a new way of understanding the biblical story," yet USA Today observed that “Bell has stuck a pitchfork in how Christians talk about damnation." Here, in The Love Wins Companion , Rob Bell offers commentary on the positive and negative attention his groundbreaking book is receiving, delivering a crucial supplement to one of the most talked-about books in recent memory.

Where did the first caveman or cave-woman get the idea that somebody, somewhere existed who needed to be worshipped, appeased, and followed? And how did the idea evolve that if you didn't say, do, or offer the right things this being would be upset, agitated, or even angry with you? Where did religion come from?

Named for the Greek word for spirit/breath/wind, NOOMA is a fresh and innovative approach to spiritual direction. This series of short films featuring innovative Bible teacher Rob Bell dives head-first into tough questions about faith, authenticity, and living as a follower of Christ. Use them in small groups, classes, even as sermon illustrations. Each 10--14 minute DVD video comes with a 32-page guide for group discussion and personal reflection. This NOOMA series library includes 10 titles: Rain, Flame, Trees, Sunday, Noise, Kickball, Luggage, Dust, Bullhorn, and Lump.

And then Noon Yeah shows up.It's late in Book 1 of the WHERE'D YOU PARK YOUR SPACESHIP? series when she appears late at night in Heen Gru-Bares's bedroom, deeply unnerving him with her claim to be a SIGN 7, sent to the planet Firdus to sort out a situation involving him.Who is this enigmatic and electric woman who appears to be a step ahead at every turn? And where does she come from and how did she become Noon Yeah? And then how did she end up in that bedroom on Firdus?It's all here in Book 2, in her words.Because there's only one Noon Yeah.

If God were throwing a party, would everyone be invited? Or does God invite some and not others? And if so, how does God decide? Is it what you say?Is it what you do?Is it what you're going to do?Is it who your friends are?Or what your friends do?Or what religion you happened to be born into?Or where you live, or what you look like, or what you believe? What if the idea of heaven and hell that we have been taught is not, in fact, what the Bible teaches? What if Jesus meant something very different by the concepts of heaven, hell, and salvation from how we've come to understand them? And what if the answer to life's meaning is much better than we ever imagined? In his teen edition of the bestselling book love wins, Rob Bell tackles all these questions in a way that addresses the real challenges of growing up in today's world. This is not just a book of questions and this is not just a book of answers. This is a book of exploration. This is a book of discovery. This is a book about why love wins.

New York Times bestselling author Rob Bell is known for bringing out into the open and exploring the deeper questions of Christian life and faith—how we relate to God, how to love others, how to channel difficulty into creativity, how to understand eternity, and how to live as Jesus taught. He invites us to examine closely the beliefs we claim to hold most dear but often do not take the time to reflect upon. Time calls Bell the most exciting voice in the church today and, now with the Rob Bell Reader , readers can sample selections from Love Wins , Velvet Elvis , Jesus Wants to Save Christians , Sex God , and Drops Like Stars .

This ebook ‘boxed set’ combines all seven of Rob Bell’s influential books in one edition - including his sensational new What We Talk About When We Talk About God.Rob Bell is one of the most charismatic voices in the Christian world, brave enough to ask the questions church leaders have been afraid to touch. This ebook presents all seven of his What We Talk About When We Talk About GodLove WinsThe Love Wins CompanionVelvet ElvisSex GodJesus Wants to Save ChristiansDrops Like StarsOn subjects ranging from the very nature of God to the way we relate to Jesus - as well as love, sex, war and politics - The Complete Rob Bell is a dynamic, passionate and inspiring exploration of faith in the modern world.

Long form audio commentaryPart I: Chapters 1-7Length: 3hrsA commentary on the book of Leviticus? Really?Absolutely! I’ve been fascinated with the book of the Leviticus for 20 years. It’s the third book in the Bible, and it’s often used as an example of how primitive and outdated and barbaric and strange the Bible is. Which is interesting, because it’s a book about justice and caring for the poor and living with intention and being a good steward of creation and making amends with someone that you’ve wronged-which are exactly the kinds of issues we’re still dealing with, thousands of years later.So yes, it is ancient and weird and violent at times and hard to understand often. But it’s also brilliant and surprising and mysterious and, as you’ll see in this commentary, inspiring. In a Leviticus sort of way.I take you through, chapter by chapter, showing you the big themes, the important words, the ideas that are just below the surface, and the story behind the story. If you’ve read my book What is the Bible? this project is in many ways a follow up to that book, like saying “Well, yes, that’s all fine, but what about a book like…Leviticus? How do you read that?”Blood, Guts and Fire is how I read it.Enjoy.

Why is this woman named Viva applying for a job at this company? She doesn’t even know what they do here! And Todd and Connie from Human Resources-why do they keep asking her questions when her answers are so terrible they both know she’s never going to get the job?In the second of Rob Bell’s plays to be published in book form, We’ll Get Back to You begins with questions that lead to more questions that lead to larger questions about this disruptive presence at the heart of it all who gradually begins to reveal what happens when people own every square inch of their lives.

The first of Rob Bell’s plays to be published in book form, What’s a Knucka? begins on the top of a mountain. The mountain is called The Banashak, and no one has ever climbed it.Until now.Four climbers from four different nations arrive from four different directions at the top of The Banashak at theEXACT.SAME.TIME.The climbers stand there on the peak, staring each other down, in shock. Which quickly turns to denial, rage, scheming, arguments about where exactly the peak even is, plots and plans to claim the achievement for themselves alone…What’s a Knucka? is a surreal tale of climbing to the top, only to discover that you’re on a very different kind of mountain.

Course on Writing. Audio

I've been wanting to do something on money for a long time because there is so much ancient and compelling wisdom on money that can transform how you understand what it is and how you interact with it.In this audiobook I want to show you show you this ancient wisdom-how money is two things and you're always moving between them, the relationship between art and how you tend to your flocks and herds, the problem of the half built tower, the profound truths of pleonexia, the difference between feasting and fasting, the fact that it's your money and it's not your money, and two stories about Toyota trucks that show the mirroring power of money. Plus, a bit about Mastercrafts, orange juice, and the relationship between financial stress and losing sleep.

From Pelé to Messi to Neymar, futsal is acknowledged as a key ingredient to developing world class players and teams. Winning Futsal discusses in detail the skills and strategies needed to produce a well organized futsal team and program. Your journey to becoming an outstanding futsal coach starts here. In 2015 Rob Bell put his ideas into play with Ballistic United Futsal Club of Pleasanton, California. His teams went on to dominate USFF's NorthWest Regional & National tournaments, taking home two age group championships at each. Following Nationals, six BUFC players received invitations to train at La Masia, FC Barcelona's famed youth academy. Now you can learn his techniques and tactics in this easy to understand book. With humor, insight, and straightforwardness, Coach Rob sheds light on the nuances of this great game. A must read for every aspiring futsal coach.

Do we honestly think that standing, sitting and singing in church for an hour a week makes God happy? God hates it when we call ourselves Christians but ignore all the things he really cares about. He doesn't want our hollow religious routines or meaningless rituals. He wants our hearts.