George Hunter is Distinguished Professor, Emeritusof Asbury Theological Seminary’s School of World Mission and Evangelism, wherehe served as Dean for 18 years and Distinguished Professor for 10 years. Previously, he served a county seat town church in Florida and a congregation of West Indian people in Birmingham, England. He taught evangelism at S.M.U.’s Perkins School of Theology and then served as United Methodism’s executive for evangelism. His writing, teaching, consulting, advocacy, and ministry are recognized nationally and globally.
Born in 1938 in Louisville, Kentucky, Hunter was afflicted with the full name of George Gill Hunter III. His friends call him “Chuck”, a lifetime nickname. Chuck is a former high school and college baseball player, and later competed as a “fastpitch” softball pitcher and a weight lifter. He still “pumps iron” and recently became a Certified Fitness Trainer. He has also returned to his adolescent interest in Magic, especially Mental Magic.
Hunter’s research and writing often focus on “apostolic” ministry and communication with the West’s growing numberof “secular” people who have no Christian memory. His teaching ministry has engaged a full range of denominations in the USA and churches in many other countries— including Canada, Mexico, Bolivia, South Africa, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, England, Australia, New Zealand, Romania, Russia, Moldova, and Brazil. He has written over a dozen books including, How To Reach Secular People, Church for the Unchurched, The Celtic Way of Evangelism, Leading and Managing a Growing Church, Radical Outreach: Recovering Apostolic Ministry and Evangelism, Christian, Evangelical and . . . Democrat?, The Apostolic Congregation: Church Growth Reconceived for a New Generation, and (forthcoming) The Recovery of a Contagious Methodist Movement—all published by Abingdon Press.
George Hunter was educated at Florida Southern College, Emory University, Princeton Theological Seminary, andNorthwestern University (Ph.D.) He is married to the former Ella Fay Price, and has three children-- Gill, Monica, and Donald, and two grandsons—Simeon andAbram. He is an ordained ministerin the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church, and served as adelegate to his Church’s 1984 and 1996 General Conferences and to the 1984,1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 Southeastern Jurisdictional Conferences.
Hunter received the UnitedMethodist Council on Evangelism’s Philip award for leadership inEvangelism. He served as presidentof The Academy for Evangelism, and later received the academy’s Charles G.Finney award for scholarship in Christian Evangelism. He served as president of The American Society for Church Growth, and later received the Society’s Donald McGavran award for leadership in Church Growth.
Hunter continues as part-time Distinguished Professor of Evangelization in Asbury’s School of World Missionand Evangelism, which educates missionaries, pastors, scholars, evangelists, trainers, church planters, lay leaders, change agents, and national church leaders for the Christian mission. The school, named for E. Stanley Jones, was the first “to declare North America and Europe as among the world’s mission fields” and to feature thisperspective within its curriculum.The school offers several degree programs, including a Ph.D. Hunter claims, “More can now be known about how to engage pre-Christian people and spread the gospel than we have ever known before. Churcheswho love God with their minds, as well as their hearts, can experiencecontagious Christian movements in their communities.”
