To the ends of the earth: Matthew Hirt’s mission work

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (ESV)

Acts 1:8

Working as a long term missionary in South Asia and Nigeria, as well as doing short term missions in other places around the world, Matthew Hirt’s life thus far is a reflection of his obedience to the call in Acts 1:8 to be a witness for the gospel to the ends of the earth.

Hirt has been an assistant professor of Intercultural Studies at North Greenville University for two years. Before that he served as a missionary around the world and in local church ministry.

South Asia

During their three years in South Asia, Hirt and his wife Heather engaged in frontline evangelism among a people group in the mountains and also worked to train and equip local churches in evangelism, discipleship, church planting and leadership development.

Their work would often look like staying with believers for multiple days and walking them through what it looks like to share the gospel with people in their context. Hirt said their goal was to have those believers take ownership of the Great Commission.

“[The Great Commission] is not just for westerners and not just for church leaders, but for all believers,” he said. “We wanted to encourage, equip, raise up and train all Christians to engage in the work.”

The area of South Asia they were serving in had the fastest growing Christian population in the world at the time. Hirt said that it was a privilege to be there to see the way God was working. 

With the growth of Christians and Christian communities comes the need for strong Christian leaders. A large part of their ministry was to raise up leaders, training and equipping them for the churches that were being planted and rapidly growing.

The call to a life of mission is not an easy one, but Hirt said that the connections he made with the locals in each place he went made him understand why he was called to stay.

“I miss everywhere I've been. The people, the friendships, the connections that I've made,” he said. “There's hard days everywhere, but the relationships you have with the people are often what help us to stay.”

Hirt talked about a connection he made with a local pastor, Raju, who would become his best friend. While he was in South Asia, they often traveled and did ministry work together.

“He also had a vision for reaching entire parts of his country,” Hirt said. “And sometimes I was encouraging him, but more often, he was encouraging me.”

Hirt said he hasn’t seen Raju in 12 years, but they still keep in touch through regular emails.

Nigeria

In Nigeria, Hirt taught at the Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary, the oldest and the largest Baptist seminary in Africa.

“It was in, what I describe as, a village of half a million people,” said Hirt. “There's a lot of people, but I wouldn't describe it as a city.”

Hirt’s wife, Heather, was also teaching evangelism, just not in a seminary or church. She spent her time at a teaching hospital across the road from the seminary, where she was discipling the medical students and training them in evangelism.

During his time at Nigeria, Hirt befriended Addison, one of his colleagues at the seminary. He said he helped him to understand the culture of the school and why things were done the way they were. Because Hirt was coming from an American institutional perspective, some of the ways things were done at the Nigerian seminary were unfamiliar to him.

“Addison was a good friend,” he said. “We encouraged one another when we were struggling with theological issues at the school or some administrative aspects.”

Nigerian culture is very community oriented. People would often stop by unannounced to visit. The social expectation was then that the host would provide them with food, which was a struggle for Hirt and his wife at first.

“We had to kind of learn, like, ‘how do I make an appropriate amount of food when I don't know if somebody's going to show up?’” he said.

Another aspect of Nigerian culture that Hirt had to adapt to was their time orientation.

“Things just kind of happened on a different schedule,” he said. “We would try to not show up early to things, and we never succeeded at that. We just kept coming later and later to some things, and we just never showed up late. We were always some of the first people there.”

The call to missions

Hirt said that, while he believes that the Great Commission is given to all believers, the call to live the life of a missionary is a very specific calling. 

He said there are two general categories of missionaries: those who are called to a specific people or place and those who are called to a task in general.

Hirt classified himself in the latter category, saying that he feels they have been called to the task of sharing the gospel, and that holds true regardless of where they are. He said they always go somewhere, be it South Asia, Nigeria, a church plant or NGU, with the plan to stay. God might not keep them there forever, but they will wait for His call to move.

“I think that's important for what it means to be a missionary: ‘I'm willing to go and stay. For as long as God permits me to be there’” he said. 

Through the struggles of facing violence, finding community and adapting to different cultures, Hirt said he and his wife found comfort in the Lord through prayer, scripture and worship with each other.

“We need to be abiding with Christ,” Hirt said. “In John 15:5, Jesus says, ‘Apart from me, you can do nothing.’ And you have to kind of reach a point where you say, ‘Okay, I genuinely believe that apart from Him, I can do nothing.’”

Along with his long term service in South Asia and Nigeria, Hirt spent two summers serving in the Philippines and led a short-term mission trip to Portland, Oregon. 

“There's great need in the world for the gospel,” Hirt said. “It's hard for us to remember sometimes how many people still have never had an opportunity to hear a gospel presentation that they can understand.”

Photos courtesy of Matthew Hirt