Joel Hunter

Northland Church was recently named one of “America’s 50 Most Influential Churches” by Church Growth Today. Dr. Hunter has served as senior pastor since 1985, and the church has grown from 200 to 12,000. Northland is “A Church Distributed,” with congregants worshiping at multiple sites throughout Central Florida. They connect with neighboring Christians for support and encouragement and to better serve their communities. Dr. Hunter encourages Northlanders: “Do what you can, where you are, with what you’ve got.” Dr. Hunter approaches today’s issues in a biblical and balanced manner. He has become an internationally known spokesperson for “Compassion Issues” outlined in Scripture: Sanctity of Life, Creation Care, Justice, Poverty, and Marriage and the Family, and has been featured in national publications including Newsweek and The New York Times, as well as programs such as The Early Show, Nightline and Anderson Cooper 360. A respected leader in the Evangelical community, he serves on several boards, including the World Evangelical Alliance and the National Association of Evangelicals. He is also the author of A New Kind of Conservative and Church Distributed. Cooperation and partnership are hallmarks of Dr. Hunter's ministry. Together, he believes, we can benefit from differences without compromising our beliefs. He is working with respected members of the scientific community to call attention to human-caused threats to the environment. Grist magazine named him among the top 15 religious environmental leaders in the world, along with the Pope and the Dali Lama. Additionally, as a delegate to the US-Islamic World Forum held in Doha, he is seeking to build a dialogue between Muslim and Christian communities. He and his wife, Becky, have been partners in the ministry since their marriage in 1972. The Hunters are parents to three married sons.