Christian Pastor Urges Churches to Remain 'Directly Engaged with Communities'

Christian pastor Rob Bell has spoken out on the importance of remaining grounded as a successful church pastor.

The Mars Hill pastor, who is known in the UK for his spiritual DVD series, Nooma, distributed by Zondervan, recently took part in an interview with Premier.tv.

During the interview, Bell said he believed church leaders should always try to remain directly engaged with their communities and accountable to them.

Bell told Christianity Magazine Editor, John Buckeridge: "I'm under no illusions that I've some sort of influence or fame, that's not what the gospels are about. Jesus centrally articulates a path of decent, it's not about me, it's not about building a bigger empire, it's not about how much stuff you sell, whatever, that holds no kind of romance to me.

"We have set up our life so it's extremely normal and connected and grounded in everyday life. So I am home every evening, the evening is my family's. We go and see our friends, or help out over here or do something."

He continued: "That's why I am so serious about being a part of my own church in a real life community with every week people being diagnosed with cancer, or this couple's baby has medical problems and this guy lost his job. That's life, it's not even interviews. This [the interview] is wonderful and nice but it's not real life."

During the interview, Rob Bell also spoke on the risks of mega-churches, evangelism in America and his new book on faith and sexuality, Sex God to be released by Zondervan in spring.

He said, "The title is Sex God but the subtitle is exploring the endless connections between sexuality and spirituality. Essentially it begins with what does it mean to be human, fully human and any understanding of sexuality you have to start there.

"It's really about far larger issues, when you talk about sex and people's longing for connection with each other, it's a picture for our longing for connection with God, the earth, that we were made for connection. The word sex comes from a latin root that means to be cut off or severed.

"We're born into a world of disconnection, we're disconnected from the earth, from each other, from God and ourselves. People say 'I don't know who I am.' So, sexuality is all of the ways that we are aware of this cut off state we're in and the desire to reconnect."

Bell concluded saying: "What does sexuality look like across the spectrum. Some of the most sexual people I know are celibate. They've given themselves to connecting with others, with God, with creation. Often sex gets narrowed down to a small dimension so I walk through that. I'm thrilled it's going to come out."