- published: 02 May 2016
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Robert Holmes "Rob" Bell Jr. (born August 23, 1970 in Ingham County, Michigan) is an American author and pastor. He is the founder of Mars Hill Bible Church located in Grandville, Michigan and is also the featured speaker in a series of spiritual short films called NOOMA. In 2011 Time magazine named Bell one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Love Wins and Velvet Elvis. Under his leadership Mars Hill Bible Church was one of the fastest-growing churches in America.
Bell is the son of Judge Robert Holmes Bell, who was nominated by Ronald Reagan to the federal judiciary and publicly confirmed by the United States Senate. Bell grew up in a traditional Christian environment. In 2011, Bell was recognized as a member of the 2011 Time 100 list.
Bell attended Wheaton College. While at Wheaton, he roomed with Ian Eskelin of All Star United. With friends Dave Houk, Brian Erickson, Steve Huber and Chris Fall, he formed the indie rock band, "_ton bundle", which was reminiscent of bands such as R.E.M. and Talking Heads. This is when _ton bundle wrote the song "Velvet Elvis", based upon the same Velvet Elvis painting that he used in his first book Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith. Wheaton College was also where Bell met his wife, Kristen. The band _ton bundle started to gain some local fame and was even asked to perform at large events, but when Bell was struck with viral meningitis these plans fell through.
Oprah Winfrey (born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954) is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011. She has been ranked the richest African-American of the 20th century, the greatest black philanthropist in American history, and was for a time the world's only black billionaire. She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world.
Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother and later raised in an inner-city Milwaukee neighborhood. She experienced considerable hardship during her childhood, claiming to be raped at age nine and becoming pregnant at 14; her son died in infancy. Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred to the daytime-talk-show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated.