Robert Lee Hill

Robert Lee Hill is a nonfiction writer, poet, and consultant for the Kauffman Foundation, focusing on community engagement with public education. 

Previously he served for 30+ years at Community Christian Church, Kansas City, Missouri, before being named Minister Emeritus in 2015. 

He has also been a consultant for What U Can Do (focusing on voter registration, voting, and citizenship empowerment) and The Health Forward Foundation of Greater Kansas City (focusing on quality health care for all).

Before arriving in Kansas City in 1985, he served as Special Projects Director and Co-Director of Project Return, Inc., a non-profit agency working with ex-prisoners and their families in Nashville, Tennessee.

Prior to his undergraduate and graduate studies, he was a Conscientious Objector during the war in Vietnam and served for two years as a Youth and Family Worker at All Peoples Christian Center in south central Los Angeles. He was ordained at All Peoples Christian Church, in Los Angeles, California, on August 2, 1981.

In 2004, he was a founding co-chair, with Rev. Eric Belt, of the Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity (MORE2), a faith-based community organizing group that has grown from a gathering of 12 congregations to 32 congregations and allies in promoting a justice policy agenda across the greater Kansas City metropolitan area and in Missouri and Kansas.  He has been the co-chair (with Judy Hellman until 2018, and now with Rick Hellman) of the GKC Martin Luther King Interfaith Service since 1991. 

He currently serves the Greater Kansas City community as a board member for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, the GKC chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and Missouri Faith Voices. He has also been, since 2001, part of the Leadership Circle of The Bethany Fellowships, assisting younger clergy with mentoring, coaching, and spiritual development in their transitions in their first and second “calls.” Since 2012, he has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Soul Repair Center at Brite Divinity School in Ft. Worth, Texas.

In the past, he has served as Chairperson of The Council of Mayors' Metropolitan Human Relations Commission (1992-1996), Co-Chair (with Dr. Kelvin Calloway) of “Compassion Sabbath” for The Center for Practical Bioethics, and on the boards of Kansas City Hospice, the Second Chance Foundation, and Jewish Vocational Services. 

Since 1993, he has been a co-host of the renowned Sunday morning radio call-in show, "Religion on the Line," on KCMO-Talk Radio 710AM/103.7FM. For many years he was a regular contributor to the “Voices of Faith” column in The Kansas City Star. He has spoken as a keynoter and guest preacher across the United States in a wide array of ecumenical and interfaith venues. 

He is the author and/or editor of eleven books, the most recent of which is LIFE IS TO BE CELEBRATED which was released in October 2021 by Caroline Street Press.