ABOUT STEPHEN BELL

Following graduation from high school in McLeansboro, Illinois in 1956, I attended the University of Illinois for one year then transferred to East Texas Baptist College where I studied for the next two and one half years. I meet my wife, Linda, there and migrated back to the home town area for a couple of years pastoring a church near Macedonia.

I finished college at Eastern Illinois University while working as an associate pastor in Salem, Illinois and went back to Texas to attend seminary. Seminary was not for me, but I continued to pastor in two churches in East Texas and finally moved to Oklahoma where I left the ministry to run an aviation business and fly as a commercial pilot and flight instructor.

A few years of constant flight time left me empty and still searching for my niche in life. Another former minister friend of mine asked me to join him as administrative assistant in a treatment center for emotionally disturbed children in East Texas. I accepted the offer and returned to school at East Texas State University to pursue a master’s degree in counseling psychology. This took me down another “dead end” with career burn-out and near divorce.

1977 found me in the Mid-cities area between Fort Worth and Dallas, Texas with two teenage daughters and my wife managing a large apartment complex. Personally, I was stumbling around among various sales-type jobs, drinking a lot, smoking some grass, playing all the golf I could and still looking for my, so called, “place in the sun.”

It was at this point (I was 39 at the time), through miraculous circumstances, I had a life-changing spiritual encounter with Jesus. I realized I had never really known Him personally and had never let Him fully into my life.

After a period of time, the call to ministry was reconfirmed and new doors of ministry began to open. Since then, I have continued to shepherd smaller groups and also have traveled extensively teaching in seminars and conferences. I have authored several books that are printed through our publishing ministry.

Presently, my wife and I live again in the Mid-cities area in Euless, Texas. God has provided a two and one-half acre campus where we have our home and facilities for conferences, guest rooms and apartments. Much of my time is spent mentoring younger men and, at the same time, shepherding a devoted group of believers who meet here and do all the things it takes to maintain the property.

I still travel some to minister to other groups and continue to write and maintain our website. I have a small green house and try to do some coastal fishing when possible. All the grandchildren are nearby but usually too busy to spend much time with pawpaw and meemah.  

God has been good.