Obama adviser Joel Hunter steps down as Florida megachurch pastor

Joel Hunter, a former spiritual adviser to President Barack Obama, plans to step down as senior pastor of Northland Church, a nondenominational megachurch located north of Orlando, Fla., according to a statement released by the church on Wednesday. Hunter, 69, founded the church based in Longwood, Fla., in 1985, starting with a few hundred members and eventually seeing the congregation grow to more than 20,000 weekly attendees at three locations. “Pastor Joel made it clear to us that he is not finished serving God and this community,” said Vernon Rainwater, Northland’s lead pastor. “However, he has completed his pastoral call.” Hunter, a registered Republican who prayed at the 2008 Democratic National Convention and at Obama’s first inauguration, served on the president’s faith advisory council and met with Obama many times during his tenure in office. In 2012, Hunter disagreed with the president’s support for same-sex marriage, but added that the disagreement did not splinter their relationship. Last year, Hunter actively reached out to the LGBTQ community after a gunman killed 49 people at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando. “I was brokenhearted, not because I had so many relationships in the LGBTQ community, but because I had so few,” Hunter wrote in June.