Rick Hunter | Pastor of Church Planting Development

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Rick is a second generation native of South Florida. He was born on October 3, 1970 (the same day Janis Joplin died) at Memorial Hospital in Hollywood, Florida (the same place Joe DiMaggio died). He grew up at a Funeral Home; one of the results of being born into a family that was in the funeral business for several generations.

But anyway, where were we… oh yeah, Funeral Home, native Floridian, etc., etc. Well, that being said, Rick spent his formative years taking school pictures that his grandmother wouldn’t display, putting his brother in various professional wrestling holds such as Ric Flair’s signature move (the Figure Four Leglock), and trying unsuccessfully to keep the family’s dog from attacking oblivious mourners at the funeral home. He actually pulled his dog off the leg of then-future U.S. Congressman Mike Parker (D-MS). We’d elucidate further if it weren’t for the pending lawsuits, and gag orders.

Rick grew up going to church since he was young, but it wasn’t until college where he first understood what the Christian life was all about. “I got to the point that my life was empty and aimless… that nothing satisfied the hunger in my gut,” he says. “I finally found the acceptance that I so desperately longed for when I understood the life of Jesus, and his relationship to God the Father – and particularly how that related to my life.”

Shortly thereafter, Rick began to pursue the ministry while on a mission trip to Jamaica, where he experienced God working in a way he hadn’t seen before. Eventually, he went to Knox Theological Seminary to further his study and preparation for ministry, where he would graduate with a Master of Divinity degree.

Upon graduating from Knox, he worked at a church in Chicago, where he and his family fell in love with the city and all the busyness and chaos of the urban way of life. After some time there, they moved back home to Fort Lauderdale, and he began dreaming about and planning the early steps of CityChurch.

Rick is married to Dede for a little over 16 years, and they have three kids – Elisabeth (14), Ben (12), and Mike (11). He enjoys the smell of freshly mowed grass, cold fronts that drop the temperature to a frigid 70ºF, and Dede’s legendary Key Lime Pie – seriously, it rules. Some of his hobbies include writing about himself in the third person and drinking good coffee – he is one of the owners of a local gourmet coffee shop (you’ll have to ask him which one – we don’t play favorites around here). He also loves listening to music (e.g., Pedro the Lion, Radiohead, Sufjan Stevens, Damien Rice), watching good movies (anything by the Coen Brothers, P.T. Anderson, or Cameron Crowe), and the ABC television show LOST.

• Read Rick’s irregularly updated blog.