Clevie Bell was born in Norfolk Virginia. A minister’s son, who's father turned his life over to God when Clevie was born, and who served 13 years as Sunday school superintendent before entering the ministry. When his father was in church, the four Bell children were there. When the other children were allowed to go for ice cream after Sunday school, the Bell children were in church.

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“I went to church because I had to, not because I wanted to,” Pastor Bell recalls.
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When Clevie was 13 years old, his family had to leave their home church because his father’s ministry would take them elsewhere. He remembers how hard it was to leave his church and school friends. That memory along with seeing his father and brother in the ministry kept young Clevie from wanting to serve God.

  

“I didn’t want to serve God,” he remembers. “ I knew if I did, it would be forever.” The minister’s son kept to his decision not to serve God. Even when “all the other kids got saved at church camp... I was the only one who didn’t”.

“I had promised God if Tony was born healthy, I would give my heart to Him.” When he turned his life over to God, Clevie got involved in his home church, leading the music ministry, serving as under shepherd and “doing anything the pastor asked me to do”.

For two years he felt God was calling him to preach. When Pastor Bell visited his father, who had moved to a ministry in California, Clevie got the opportunity to preach his first sermon.

The visit lasted three years. He got a job to support his family and worked with his dad in the music ministry and other church activities.

All this time he felt the call to preach, but the stubborn young man resisted. “I didn’t want to preach,” he said. So he packed up and headed back to Virginia where he “plugged right back into” the same church, serving once again as music minister, under shepherd and member of all the church committees.

Pastor Bell, at that time, was also appointed district youth director. His love of singing and music led him to form a trio called ‘Ambassadors for Christ’. The trio ministered in churches all over the south and because there were altar calls and people got saved (gave their hearts to the Lord), he felt he was in the right ministry.

However, God had another ministry for him. He finally accepted the call to preach when the pastor’s mother died and the pastor needed him to take the service. “I was obedient,” he remembers. “I didn’t want to do it—I tried to talk him out of it…I prayed all week.” Because everybody knew the pastor would be out of town and all the parishioners would already know Christ, Bell asked God to let somebody accept the Lord if his calling was really to preach. When a teenager came forward “I knew that was it,” he said.

When the district bishop needed someone to hold a service in another town, he called on Clevie Bell. He preached that service—and ended up staying for seven years starting or “birthing” a church there that grew to more than 70 parishioners by the time he felt God calling him to minister elsewhere. The “elsewhere” turned out to be Delaware!

In 1983 Pastor Bell moved to Delaware to minister in an already established church. Again God had other plans and he felt the call to start a new church. With just a handful of people, Pastor Bell began a home Bible study...

Described by many as a “a real people person,” Pastor Bell serves Liberty Fellowship with a down home, Southern hospitality, humor and clear-cut messages. He is known to “tell it like it is—with love.”

“What I do, I just do it— It’s my life... I have a heart to be a shepherd.” While he ran from the call to preach for years, Pastor Bell now embraces that call with a fervor that seems to keep him always on the go for God... for his sheep. As one church member put it, “he’s a true shepherd.” Pastor Bell is currently celebrating over 30 years in the ministry!