Northland Church
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Northland, A Church Distributed is a megachurch in Longwood, FL.[1] Joel Hunter is the senior pastor.
[edit] History
The mission of Northland, "A Church Distributed" according to its stated mission is to see people come to Christ and grow in Him and to link local and global communities for ministry and worship everywhere, every day and to reconnect the church by building relationships, serving and worshiping together. [2]
The church was in existence for twelve years before the arrival of Dr. Hunter in 1995. During that transitional time attendance began to increase dramatically from about 400 in attendance to over 6000. In 1998, Northland's focus began to change to a "distributed" focus of church ministry, a perspective that focused an increasing amount of attention on developing relationships and social networks outside of the church. [3]
Today, Northland continues to spearhead an innovative approach to ministry that focuses on networking with other churches and Christian ministries, concurrent worship worship services at multiple locations with live streaming video and audio feed, and innovative uses of the internet and web technology.
[edit] Pastoral Staff
Dr. Hunter is the senior pastor and holds a Bachelor of Science in education degree from Ohio University. Dr. Hunter earned his Master of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry from Christian Theological Seminary. In 2005, Belhaven College awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Humanities. Dr. Hunter is a guest lecturer at Reformed Theological Seminary and is on the board of directors of the National Association of Evangelicals and is a spokesperson for the Evangelical Climate Initiative. [4]
