Bob is a participant in a three-year, Huntsville-based small clergy group, the Institute for Clergy Excellence (ICE), funded by the Lily Endowment. This interfaith group is focused on both preaching excellence and worship experience enrichment. As part of his ICE involvement, he will lead a group from United Church on a visit to Israel in October of 2007.

Bob grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. He graduated from Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut in 1971 and earned an M.Div.degree from Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut in 1975. Fresh out of seminary he served as Associate Pastor at Salem UCC in Allentown, Pennsylvania. In 1977 he became the pastor of East Main Congregational UCC in Galesburg, Illinois. While at East Main, he began working toward a D.Min.degree at the Chicago Theological Seminary, focusing on pastoral counseling, and completed the program in 1981. While in the program he developed and led a series of divorce adjustment groups. Afterward he wrote his doctoral dissertation on spiritual development during the divorce adjustment/recovery process.

In 1982 he accepted a call to St. Paul’s UCC in Monee, Illinois. There, Bob started a school, St. Paul’s Christian School, utilizing the Sunday school wing of the church for classroom space. The school eventually grew to include grades K4-6 (multi-grade classrooms) with an enrollment of 63. The school also offered after-school care as a way to support working parents, and, especially, single mothers. While in Monee Bob also taught business ethics and the history of philosophy at the college level as an adjunct faculty member.

Bob is married to Beth Harland Hurst and they have four children: Leah Christakes (Rocky), Geoffrey (Corin Kinsey), Jennifer and Elizabeth. Currently, they also have five grandchildren: Damian, John, Alexis, Sophie, and Robert.