Meet the Pastor

Rev. Dr. C. Anthony Hunt

Dr. Hunt on the Web

Recognized for gifts and passions in preaching, teaching, thought leadership, transformational leadership development, and facilitating strategic change and organizational turnaround, Rev. Dr. C. Anthony Hunt is a native of Washington, DC, an Ordained Elder in the United Methodist Church, and since 2011 has served as the Senior Pastor of Epworth Chapel United Methodist Church in Baltimore, MD. Additionally, since 2020, he has served as the Supervising Pastor of the Beloved Community Cooperative Parish, which is comprised of three churches in Baltimore (Epworth Chapel UMC, Sharp Street Memorial UMC, and Martin Luther King Memorial UMC). 


Most recently, Dr. Hunt is the founder and project director for Hope for the City: Transforming Urban Leaders, a Baltimore-based Transformational Development collaborative with the Ministry in the City HUB at City Seminary, New York, and the Lilly Endowment. He is responsible for overseeing the project’s planning, design, and implementation in helping accomplish the aim of developing transformational leaders to serve in urban ministry contexts.  


From 2004-2012, he served as the District Superintendent of the Baltimore-Harford and Baltimore Metropolitan Districts in the Baltimore-Washington Conference, where he was responsible for supervising 88 churches and pastors in the greater Baltimore area. In 2008, he was the founding District Superintendent of the Baltimore Metropolitan District, and that year he was also appointed as Executive Director of Hope for the City, an urban strategic initiative to strengthen churches in Baltimore. From 1998-2004, he served as the Executive Director of the Multi-Ethnic Center for Ministry of the Northeastern Jurisdiction, headquartered in Columbia, MD, and has served as senior pastor of three other congregations in Virginia and Maryland.

 

During his pastoral tenure at Epworth Chapel, the congregation of more than 1200 members has experienced significant growth in worship attendance and membership (more than 225 persons have joined the church), expansion of program ministries (over 50 active ministries), and engagement in two major strategic planning processes (“Epworth 2020”, and “EpworthDream 2030”). New ministries include “It Takes a Village” — a partnership with educational institutions in the community surrounding the church; “Fishes and Loaves” — a comprehensive ministry aimed at eradicating hunger in the community; Harvest — a young adult praise team; the “SOUL Cafe’” — a weekly meal aimed at promoting fellowship for persons in the church and community; the Youth Breakfast Club; a Grief Sharing ministry; a regional Food Distribution Hub, where during the 2020-23 COVID-19 pandemic, in partnership with the Maryland Food Bank and other community partners, over 200 tons of free fresh food (produce, meat, and bakery products) was distributed to people in the church and community; an enhanced Multi-media Ministry, with the construction of a new multi-media facility; and technology upgrades across the entire Epworth Chapel campus. 

 

Among areas of church and community servant-leadership, Dr. Hunt serves as a member of the Baltimore County Executive’s Clergy Roundtable on Public Safety, the Wesley Theological Seminary Board of Governors, the St. Mary’s Ecumenical Institute’s Executive Board, and the Patterson Memorial Association’s (Baltimore) Board of Trustees.

 

From 2016-21 he served as the chair of the Baltimore-Washington Conference Board of Ordained Ministry (UMC) — which has responsibility for the administrative care and preparation of over 1300 ministers and ministerial candidates, and he has been elected as a delegate to the United Methodist Church’s Jurisdictional and General Conferences three times (these are the United Methodist Church’s highest legislative bodies). Dr. Hunt has also previously served under appointment on the Maryland Governor’s Commission on Judicial Nominations, the Harford County (MD) Commission on Mental Health and Addictions, the Board of Directors of Harford County Court Appointed Special Advocates, the Board of Directors of Chesapeake (MD) Habitat for Humanities, the Board of Directors of the UMC General Commission on Religion and Race, and the Board of Governors of Wesley Theological Seminary (he was elected as a Governor Emeritus in 2012, after having actively served from 2000-12, and was elected again in May 2022 to serve as an active member of the Wesley Seminary Board of Governors).

 

A philosophical theologian, Dr. Hunt is also a Professor of Systematic, Moral, and Practical Theology at St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, where he is a Permanent Dunning Distinguished Lecturer in recognition of ongoing excellence in teaching and scholarship. He was the recipient of St. Mary’s Seminary’s annual Dunning Lectureship in the 2003-04 and 2007-08 academic years in recognition of his excellence in teaching and scholarship. He also teaches on the core adjunct faculties at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC, and United Theological Seminary in Dayton, OH, and is a Faculty Fellow and the E. Franklin Frazier Professor of African American Studies at the Graduate Theological Foundation in Sarasota, Florida. Previous faculty and administrative appointments have included serving as Dean of Haebler Memorial Chapel and Visiting Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Goucher College in Baltimore, MD, as Director of the Center for Community Action and Social Justice at the Kay Spiritual Life Center, American University in Washington, DC, and as Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Harford Community College in Bel Air, MD.

 

A graduate of the University of Maryland (BA in Economics, with Honors), he holds advanced degrees from Troy State University (MBA with a concentration in Management), Wesley Theological Seminary (Master of Divinity, with Honors, and Wesley Merit Fellow), St. Mary’s Seminary and University (Graduate Certificate in Spiritual Theology and W.K. Kellogg Foundation Fellow), Bethel Theological Seminary and University, St. Paul, MN (Doctor of Ministry in Transformational Leadership), and the Graduate Theological Foundation, in affiliation with the University of Oxford, UK (Doctor of Ministry in Transformational Leadership and Applied Ministry and Ph.D. in Philosophical Theology). Additionally, he has completed the Oxford Executive Leadership Programme at the Said Business School, Oxford University, UK, two years of additional studies in Philosophy at the University of Oxford, the Certified Manager’s Program at the Institute of Certified Professional Managers, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA (he holds the credential of Certified Manager), and in 2004, completed a three-year Lilly Endowment-sponsored post-doctoral fellowship in Pastoral Theology at the Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton, NJ.

 

He has also completed training in Executive Leadership Coaching Strategies at the Harvard University Extension School, Cambridge, MA, and has completed training in CoActive leadership coaching with the CoActive (Coach) Training Institute, San Rafael, California, and the Life Coaching Certification Program with the Life Coaching Institute, Costa Mesa, CA (currently the Certified Life Coach Institute). Both programs are International Coach Federation accredited. He holds the credential of Certified Professional Life Coach.

 

Additionally, Dr. Hunt is a Distinguished Military Graduate of the U.S. Army Officer’s Candidate School, Fort Benning, GA, has served as a commissioned Signal Corps officer and military chaplain, and completed clinical residencies in pastoral counseling at the Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, DC (1990) and Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD (1995).

 

In 2008, he was installed as a Permanent Dunning Distinguished Lecturer at the Ecumenical Institute, St. Mary’s Seminary and University. This is the highest distinction bestowed on an Ecumenical Institute faculty member. In 2015, he was inducted as a Faculty Fellow of the Graduate Theological Foundation. This is the highest distinction bestowed on a member of the Foundation’s international faculty. In 2016, he was the recipient of the Society of John Wesley Award of Merit and was inducted into the Society of John Wesley, which is the highest honor bestowed on an alumnus of Wesley Theological Seminary. In 2017, he received the Baltimore Faith Leaders Award from Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., Delta Lambda Chapter. In 2019, he was inducted into the Morehouse College Board of Preachers in the Martin Luther King, Jr. College of Ministers and Laity, Atlanta, GA, and in 2023, he was the recipient of By Faith Magazine’s Drum Major Award for national leadership and advocacy in social justice and the Dr. James M. Shopshire Community Engagement Award from Wesley Theological Seminary’s Community Engagement Institute.    

 

Dr. Hunt has lectured and preached internationally and has been featured in Black Enterprise Magazine, on National Public Radio, and in the United Methodist News Service, among other national media outlets. He is the author of sixteen books including — Hope for the City: Transformational Leadership Development for Urban Ministries (2022); Things that Matter: Messages for Transformed Living (2022); Hope Sings: Sermons on the Psalms, Volume 3 (2021); Holding Onto Hope: Essays, Sermons and Prayers on Religion and Race, Volume 4 (2020); Songs for the Seasons: Sermons on the Psalms, Volume 2 (2020); I’ve seen the Promised Land: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the 21st Century Quest for the Beloved Community (2020); Come Go with Me: Howard Thurman and a Gospel of Radical Inclusivity (2019); and Blessed are the Peacemakers: A Theological Analysis of the Thought of Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King, Jr. (2005); in addition to over 250 published articles and chapters on issues related to the church and society.

 

He and his wife, Lisa are the proud parents of Marcus (deceased), Kristen, and Brian. In his spare time, he enjoys spending time with family, traveling, reading, writing, exercising, sports, and listening to jazz music.