Matt Hunt

Background

About Matt Hunt

Matt Hunt grew up in Sydney and completed bachelor's degrees in economics and law at Macquarie Uni before practising law in Western Sydney. As a solicitor in a suburban law firm, he focused on litigation, crime, and family law. However, Matt’s passion for full time vocational ministry was with him from an early age and after studying bachelor's degrees in ministry and theology at Morling College, he entered Baptist ministry in Sydney and moved to Queensland on the northern Gold Coast in 2002 as Ministry Team Leader at Helensvale & District Baptist Church. In 2012 Helensvale joined with Southport Baptist Church to form a new multi-site local baptist church: CrossLife - a baptist church. In 2013 CrossLife planted a third campus at Upper Coomera in partnership with Queensland Baptists and the assistance of Stockland as one of the rare church plants in recent years with a full-time pastor, and venue, from the start. Over 23 years Matt has led CrossLife to grow as a community oriented, mission driven church. This is reflected in CrossLife’s hybrid nature with four childcare services, a property ministry arm with two community properties with 15 permanent tenants and a growing cohort of casual hirers, and a social welfare ministry with chaplaincy, food pantries, counselling, and a disabled ministry. All three ministry arms are separately incorporated entities, yet clearly under the ‘CrossLife banner’ and the leadership of the church. Matt’s pastoral leadership has been moulded on several occasions over this time. The development of teams and appropriate governance structures to support this varied and complex local church is a key to his, and the church’s, growth, and leadership over this time. Alongside his pastoral leadership, Matt has regularly been involved in governance in Christian organizations for 30 years. He has chaired the Crusader Union of Australia, and Malyon College Council, alongside his chair roles at CrossLife. He has been a member of the national councils and Boards of SIM and Peer Power Ltd. One of Matt’s passions is that in all the appropriate complexity and processes of ministry governance, the heart of the gospel and the Lord Jesus would not be lost in Christian organizations. In the recent exponential growth of regulations and government oversight of not-for-profits, it is this Jesus-centred grid and practice that Matt believes sets apart Christian ministry governance from general NFP governance: It is not merely a theology of governance but a understanding and as a further expression of the kingdom of God, in and for, the world.