I could be wrong, but I am guessing that Joel Hunter and I have some unusual connections:

1. We just co-taught a doctoral seminar at Reformed Seminary.
2. We have done a funeral together (my father-in-law).
3. We both think my mother-in-law is a very nice person. (Very nice. Really.)
4. He prayed at the DNC and I, well, was near Barak Obama once.

OK, the last one probably is not really a connection.

Joel and I recently had lunch in the parlor of Reformed Seminary in Orlando (with our friend Steve Childers) and talked gospel, kingdom, politics, and a bit about my mother-in-law (grin). Later on, one of our research team members interviewed Joel.

Joel Hunter has served as the senior pastor of Northland since 1985. During his tenure the church has grown from 200 to 12,000. Northland is "A Church Distributed," meaning the church is arranged around the relationships of the congregation and partner ministries, rather than around a physical church building.

The people of the church worship at multiple sites throughout Central Florida and serve their unique, local communities. The sites are all connected during the worship experience through a two-way video connection that allows different parts of the services to be distributed among the sites and gives congregants opportunities to interact with one another in real time.

Worshipers also participate at 1,500 smaller sites worldwide via Northland's innovative Webstream application.

All of this makes Northland one of the most technologically savvy churches in America. LifeWay Research was able to talk with Pastor Joel about Northland's strategy for making disciples.

LifeWay Research: Tell us about some of the exciting things happening at Northland.

Pastor Joel Hunter: Northland is in a huge transition. We worship in a new building with all of its capabilities that was specifically built more for the people who would never come inside of a building than it was for those who would gather within this particular building. It has been a watershed moment in our history.

We have had the philosophy of being a "distributed church" for about 10 years now. And what that has meant for us is we have not only worshipped concurrently with several sites in town, but we have worshipped concurrently with people online. Now as that develops we are growing tremendously with those who are worshipping with us online. Some of the online participants signed in with all of their information while others just observe. This part of our ministry has grown tremendously. Because of this growth we are beginning to do everything and design every program so that we are not just a big church with inside programs, but so that any site of any size anywhere can be a part of our programs because we want to focus on those people who gather of any size, but especially for the worshipping point, the home church, the organic church, or whatever you want to call it.

LWR: So what does all of this mean for Northland?

Pastor Hunter: It means that these people gather together because they need some help or want to be connected to a larger group in the church to worship, but they are going to do their own pastoral care, their own education, their own community service, all of that kind of stuff where thy are. And that fellowship is important. So for us the development has really birthed a vision of being able to-- plant churches is probably too big a term for us because the term church has so much western baggage to it-- but we are enabling small congregations to do evangelism and discipleship and service and worship together all over the world. And so that's the course that we are on right now. That is where everything is pointed here in our church.

It has tremendous benefits to our people's maturity because when you come to a church and you are constantly reminded that you are just getting filled up for the people who are not there inside the church with you, and everything we do as a church is to make us witnesses and servants to those who are not regularly in church programming. It really does give you a better handle on how and what it means to love God and love your neighbor as yourself.

LWR: How would you respond to the critical comments of those that believe worshipping online is forsaking the gathering together of believers?

Pastor Hunter: First of all, the ideal of online worship is that you would gather others to worship with you where you are. So the singular worshipper that just doesn't want to go into a church, although they are still valid, is not really our target. That is why we have never been on TV. The observance of a worship experience is not the goal.

LWR: What should people do that wish to worship with Northland online?

Pastor Hunter: People just go to the website and sign in to whichever service. Online worshippers can see who is worshipping with them at that moment. And if they like they can chat with others that are signed in for that worship service as well over i-chat. They also have the option to speak with ministers on duty and they also can participate in the worship experience. Whenever the congregation is addressed and asked for their favorite scripture, for example, those online can respond. As the technology develops we will literally be able to see on the walls of our church many of those who are worshipping with us so those people will be literally in the same room. So if Denis is worshipping from South Korea or Thor from Iceland--those are two regulars we have--we will be able to see their images all in the same room. It's this kind of togetherness that goes way beyond what you would think for technology.

For people my generation, I am 60 years old, it is a little bit more difficult to imagine that this is not a very cold and artificial experience, one that is rather mechanical. But for the people who are my kids' generation, they have lived off this sort of technology.

I have three sons. They have lived online since they can remember. They do life online. And the kids just coming up now, for them there is nothing artificial about it. My generation grew up in a theater style worship or life. The coming generations will all grow up where the screen is a connection or a window to the world. The screen is some degree of intimacy although it never replaces and should actually generate geographically based togetherness. And so that is what we are trying to do. We are trying to use a virtual community to create a local community so that people have actual physical fellow Christian relationships where they live so that they can care for one another and encourage one another in ministry.

LWR: Northland is doing a great job with bringing different geographical locations together for worship through the internet, but have you developed a way in which to help your online viewers/communities to continue the worship experience after the service through things such as small groups etc? Are you going to develop leaders for those internet congregations that are growing and possibly becoming another site of Northland? If so what qualifications would you expect to see in such a leader?

Pastor Hunter: It is in development right now. Because of the philosophy that we have we are probably not going to emphasize those larger congregations that are multi sites. Once you get past a 100 people you need a certain leader with a certain skill set and a certain gift mix to develop that big a group. And that big a group also carries with it its own expense and it carries its own rate of failure (the failure of church plants in the nation). So what we are going to concentrate on are leaders of small congregations. That is, you know, a dozen, 20. That anybody can take responsibility for if they have the ongoing support and reference to people who have been trained as pastors and can support them in that in that way.

For a long time here we have done small group leadership. We have virtually ordained small group leaders. They do some of the baptisms in our church, funerals, and some of the marriages so that it all doesn't have to go back to a large church leader for those sacerdotal functions.

Ultimately what we want to do is to take any group anywhere that has three or more and somebody wants to take spiritual responsibility for this group we want to take that person and mentor them and to provide resources for them. I am not talking about money but about communication. If a person in our own congregation decides to take on that spiritual leadership for a small group, they become a spiritual leader in every sense. This has already happened in our history. So we know it works. We cannot form a church but we can equip those that are coming to Christ to bring their friends together to form and a church and we can appoint a spiritual leader where they are to guide them

So that's essentially what is in the works right now for us.

LWR: What does virtual worship look like for those inside the church walls?

Pastor Hunter: At the beginning our of services we read off a personal welcome to those that are worshipping with us online and to the rest of the world. People inside the church are excited by this. Even if your 80 years old this is still fascinating that they are worshipping with you.

But the point is, we do have people who go out in short term missions. And we have hundreds of them, that develop this heart to be linked in worship and service to people in other parts of the world. And so they really want to pour our leadership and our resources into a church that will benefit them as well as benefit those who worship in a facility at a particular address.

LWR: Do you feel that virtual worship has opened up a whole new mission opportunity?

Pastor Hunter: Oh, absolutely. For example we have a girl who has volunteered to go all over the United States to visit people who are worshipping with us online. She is taking a video camera with her and getting their story so that we can get to know them and figure out how we can serve them better. The same thing happens in different parts of the world. If we are having people who are worshipping with us online on a regular basis we are trying to create a relationship with them. We also hope that we will have people from our church interested in visiting with them in their country and getting their story. We are not just sending mission teams to countries because we have heard that there are poor people there. We are going and assisting those that worship with us. We are asking them their needs. We go to support a Christian already there who is doing ministry and support them in their ministry. So this is greatly expanding our missions program and our mission's mentality.

LWR: How has Northland successfully moved your congregation to follow along reaching different generations, because you obviously you feel that you are reaching younger generations with internet worship?

Pastor Hunter: We are not trying to get rid of our 80 year old members or to change their style of worship. If they want to come to church and go to Sunday School they can still do that. We have not leapfrogged the traditional church. We have expanded the traditional church. We have a larger vision of what being the church means and that includes people who don't walk through the door. Elders used to say that "we'll take care of and love everybody the best we can who walks through our doors". The distributed church says, "We will take care and love everybody the best we can who will never walk through our doors," also. We do not try to convince people that are really content and growing that they now need to try virtual worship.

LWR: Pastor Hunter it seems that Northland is expanding the vision of the traditional church. What is your definition of church?

Pastor Hunter:The church is Christians coming together to worship and serve in order to expand the kingdom of God.

LWR: What advice would you give to pastors in smaller churches or struggling churches about growth and reaching people?

Pastor Hunter: Well, first of all there is a ton of information on stuff about things such as discipleship, growth, or church programs. A great deal of resources can be found online and they are free. So I would encourage them to take this stuff and to use it. But here is what I would say to any pastor and any church no matter how small and struggling because I was a pastor of a church that was small and struggling. You do two things.

First of all, you love your people enough not only to minister to their hurts, but to make them ministers to other people's hurts because that is when the church really starts to grow. You can only grow from those that are not yet included if you are talking about numbers. Your attention has to be as much on those who are not yet in your congregation as those who are in your congregation. If you only pay attention to those that have been in the congregation a long time, most of them have relationships already established within that congregation. If you pay attention to the new people that come in and teach them how to minister to others they have a relationship with then most of their relationships are outside the congregation. So in your congregation minister to the hurts of people and love them where they are. But teach them to be ministers also.

And then, secondly, just get involved as a church outside the church walls. Do community service. Do short term missions, whatever it takes to give yourself away. Because that is exactly what Christ did. God came in bodily form out of a very safe environment and he just went to where the need was. And whether that is in your town or that is in another country, what will happen is the church will grow when you go literally, physically to where the need is. That is the way this church grew and that is the way that lots of churches grow.

Fascinating stuff from Joel Hunter. Feel free to give your thoughts below. And, don't mention my mother-in-law in the comments!

And, be sure to visit the other post from MegaChurchWeek at the blog:
Megachurch Week-- Looking at Research
Interview with Kerry Shook
Megachurches in Outreach Magazine
Interview with Perry Noble
Who's Who in Megachurch Research

One final note: It looks like megachurch week got too big for just one week. So, we will end it here for this week-- but post more for next week, including interviews with more pastors and more research information.

Ed