SEU Now: School of Mission

Hello everyone. I'm SCSVP for Student Development, Bethany Thomas, and you are watching SEU Now, our weekly update show where we keep you informed and educated on everything happening right here at SCU. And today we're going to be talking about the launch of the Bob and Hazel Hoskins School of Mission.

This past summer, we officially announced the creation of the School of Mission in honor of world missions, Bob and Hazel Hoskins. The school is in collaboration with the international ministry, One Hope, that reaches children and youth across the globe through relevant gospel messages in the form of print, films, and apps. One Hope has reached more than 1.7 billion children and youth and works in over 238 countries. And I am so excited to have in the studio with us today One Hope's founder, Bob Hoskins; One Hope's president, Dr. Rob Hoskins; and the School of Mission chair, Dr. Chad Kalzi. I said that wrong, I'm sorry. Welcome to the show, you guys.

That's great. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. And as, as always, before we get started, I always like to fill you guys in with the top three things that are going around, are going on at SCU this week. First, as everyone knows, it's Missions Week. It began on Monday night and it's been an awesome experience so far. SEU Missions will be hosting their 2022 trip launch tonight at 8 p.m. And tomorrow, all throughout the day, you can walk on El Prado from 10:30 to 4 o'clock, and you'll be able to see all the different trips that are going out. So students that are listening, make sure you stop by all the different booths to see, and you do not want to miss a special Missions takeover tomorrow at chapel. Thursday morning, Bob Hoskins, he'll be joining us at 9 a.m. in Bush Chapel for an incredible word and a time of worship. So please, you do not want to miss that at 9 a.m. tomorrow in Bush Chapel.

Next, there's something exciting that happened: an ancient Torah scroll was donated to SCU from Ken and Barbara Larson, the founders of God's Ancient Library. Recently, two members of the Barnett College of Ministry and Theology, Dr. Daniel McNaughton and Reverend Anthony Roberts, traveled to Minneapolis to officially receive the scroll. This scroll is 84 feet in length, and the scroll was written in Germany in the early 19th century and contains the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, hand-written on calf skin. Dr. McNaughton is a professor of practical ministry in the Old Testament here at SCU and plans to use the scroll in his Hebrew and Old Testament courses, which is incredible. So if you're not a Barnett College major, go ahead and stop by and take a look at it. It's really cool; it's 84 feet long, and you guys can look at it and see it. I think it's really cool.

Finally, we have our next home football game this Saturday, October 9th. Our football team will take on Ave Maria University on Victory Field. Are you guys football fans? Yeah, of course. Okay, well, here we go. My dad asked, I wonder if they have a home game this year. Dude, we have a home game on Saturday. Um, we're seeing, we might stay over an extra day. Okay, let us know. We'd love to host you at our fire football game. Student tailgating begins at 5 p.m. in the Destino lot, and kickoff is at 7 p.m. And this is actually a day that's dedicated to staff and faculty. We appreciate you guys, and tickets are only five dollars this weekend, so make sure you grab a ticket, and you can buy those online at fire.scu.edu and use your SU login to get your five-dollar ticket. I was a Miami Hurricane fan, so okay, you're all about the you. Well, yeah, when we played Notre Dame. Yes, you know, it was Catholics, good stuff. I love it. At convicts. Yes. So I hope SCU doesn't with Ave Maria. Yeah, Maria. So I don't know, I hope we're not convicted. No, I hope there's no signs in the stadium on that. That's just a hurricane. Yeah. Are you still a University of Miami family? Unfortunately, oh no. We're having a, we are terrible. We're supposed to have a great year. We're all about the you here and the fire. So right now we're go fire. Now let's go ahead and hop into this. Um, Rob, how about you get us started by speaking a bit more about One Hope and its global ministry?

Sure. Yeah, great. Thanks. And great introduction you read there. Oh, thanks. Um, yeah, it started with Dad. I mean, and he's gonna share in a moment, but um, he had a vision in, in 1987, um, and God showed him, um, just, uh, prophetically, um, the children, youth of the world, and he saw them, um, through this spiritual vision, um, things he'd never seen before. He saw child sex, he saw soldiers, child soldiers, sex slaves. Wow. Um, he, he saw kids watching pornography on the palm of their hand. This was before cell phones. And so it was just like, what am I seeing, Lord? Yeah. And uh, he just saw this incredible attack coming against the next generation, and he said, God, what am I seeing and what can I do? And the Lord said, the only thing that will overcome this evil is truth. My word is truth. Take my word and give it to every child in the world. Wow. So that vision was in 1987, and our mission has remained absolutely the same ever since then: God's word, every child. That's amazing. So, um, through amazing, miraculous open doors, we began to get invitations from around the world to bring God's word into public school systems and uh, and just we saw an amazing transformation happen when we took God's word and put it in a really relevant and dynamic format. Wow. Um, and that's always been our vision at One Hope is to make the word come alive to the next generation. So we move from, um, we still do a lot of print. We'll print, I think this year over 90 million books for kids around the world. That's incredible. And as you said, hundreds of languages in almost every nation. But then we also started moving into new media, and we started doing uh, films, uh, visual scripture. We've been one of the pioneers in visual scripture. That's incredible. And uh, and, and apps. So, um, one of our programs is the Bible App for Kids, yeah, where kids can actually gamify, you know, at the youngest of ages, starting at two years old and learning biblical literacy through the stories of the Bible. So what One Hope has become from that original vision of Dad's over 30 years ago is uh, many of the things you talked about, but this year we'll be able to reach over 135 million children through about 320 different types of programs: school programs as curriculum, after-school programs, leadership development programs, sports programs. I mean, you can run through that list of 320: summer apps, some are movies. Wow. Huge church planning initiatives. So a lot has changed in the 30-plus years. No kidding. But uh, we've stayed committed to that original vision God had, and we're seeing uh, literally millions of children and young people that by engaging with God's word and it coming alive, it's sharper than any two-edged sword. It's the most powerful thing that exists. Here is God's word, and we're seeing God's word in tangible ways transform the lives of children and young people around the world. Just our latest story is with this huge blow-up in Afghanistan. We really felt a passion, and so we started doing uh, what we call digital, uh, digital evangelism and digital marketing. I mean, this is 21st-century cutting-edge missiology. Yeah, on the forefront. So I just wanted to share with you, and so we had just put one of our products, which is Lumo films, uh, we put it into the Dar language, which is one of the languages of Afghanistan for the Shiites there, for the, for the Dar people who, who are going to be heavily persecuted because they're Shiites, they're not Sunnis in Afghanistan, and uh, and, and immediately acting on that, we were able to get 45,000 through our Facebook targeting digitally, um, and those, those uh, 45,000 have now downloaded God's word. They're watching the scripture in their own heart language, hearing the story of Jesus for the almost all of them for the first time, and then we're connecting them to digital missionaries. Yeah, uh, which is something I'd love to talk to SEU students about: becoming digital missionaries with us. Of course, we'd welcome it. So, so to be able to take those uh, 45,000 and really create a user journey for them, um, from knowing nothing about Jesus, engaging with his word and coming to a place eventually where we, where we help plant them in local house churches is the vision and mission. So I could talk about, you know, hundreds of programs around the world, but that's sort of one of the latest and greatest new programs we're involved in.

That's fascinating. And it's reached billions of people. And what I love, what you said at the beginning, is the best way to overcome evil is to overcome evil with good. You know, we hear that in scripture, with truth. Exactly. And like, no better way to do it. And even in Afghanistan that you're talking about, what they needed in this moment is truth. Yeah. And you guys are able to live, deliver that in the method of 35,000 downloads. 45 said, my word is truth. Amen to that. You guys are preaching to me this morning. I love it. And for all our listeners, you guys should just tune in and take notes. Um, thank you for that.

Bob, you and your late wife, Hazel, served as missionaries together for many years in countries all around the world. You've championed and led initiatives in cross-cultural missions, government, nonprofit, and so much more. It's safe to say you both built quite a legacy for the Hoskins name. Can you share with our listeners a little bit of your story and your heart of missions?

Well, it's going to be uh, challenging to share uh, 86 years. I understand. My journey started at the age of seven when I had a vision. Okay. And uh, started preaching at the age of seven. Wow. By the time I was nine, I was preaching in big city-wide crusades across America to thousands of people. Wow. And then when I was 18, God directed me into overseas evangelism, and I spent uh, a number of years prior to marrying Hazel in overseas evangelism. And then we continued that until 1964 when God spoke to me to uh, go to the Arab world of the Middle East. And so we moved uh, Rob was uh, three months old, his brother David was two years old, and we moved to Beirut, Lebanon, hopefully to establish a base of evangelism. But my typical evangelism style, there was no place to do that in the Muslim world. And so I had to fast and pray, and God directed me to literature, and we launched a massive literature program that enabled us to plant hundreds of churches in areas where there were no missionaries. And I followed that vision for media uh, and came to actually to Miami to, to lead a publishing uh, Christian uh, literature ministry that became the largest publishers of Bibles, curriculum, music in Spanish, French, Portuguese, and other major languages. But as Rob said, in 1987, I had this vision, and we launched, we didn't know where to start except God said, take my word, and you'll do it through leaders. Amen. And so I didn't know about the leaders, so I, I said, well, you know, we're the largest publisher of, of literature in the Spanish language, let's start in Spanish. And so I sent Bibles to presidents of uh, all the Spanish-speaking nations. Wow. And an invitation came then to, from the minister of education in El Salvador, and uh, he said, could you give Bibles to all of our children in our school? Wow. And the short of the story is, I said, you know, I don't want to send a 1600-page book to an eight-year-old kid, you know, where will he start? Right? He needs to know, first of all, that God loves him. Yeah. There's a plan for his life. Amen. And I believe that's found in the Gospels. Amen. So we harmonize the Gospels, put them in a chronology, and publish what we call in Spanish, El Libro de Vida, the Book of Life. Yeah. And, and we're able to give it to every child in every school in El Salvador, and the results, if I had time, just astounding. In fact, Dr. John Bueno, who led the distribution, will be here uh, tonight and will share in the opening of the school uh, with us this, this, this week. He was able to reach every child in every school, and, and it created a spiritual awakening. And then God opened the doors uh, we were the first uh uh scripture to, to legally be distributed in the Soviet Union after 72 years of atheism when the minister of education of, rather the minister of religion invited us to bring the book of, of, we, we call it internationally the Book of Hope. Yes, uh, to the schools of, of the Soviet Union uh, there were only a few, a few recognized churches when we started uh, we've been a part of planting over uh, almost 5,000 churches now across. So I could go on and on and on, but that's a quick view of 85 years.

I'm soaking this in. So a vision that you had at the age of seven has led to tremendous impact. And isn't it crazy the faithfulness that the Lord has had? Yeah. You know, you said yes to a call, and he opened door after door after door. And our God is so good and so faithful. Right, till today. And I'm so grateful. And I believe, I believe just as the Holy Spirit spoke to Dad at seven years old to start preaching, yeah, at 17 to get a one-way ticket and leave for the mission field as a pioneer missionary in British Guiana, uh, again when he was in his uh, early 30s to, to move to the Middle East with his young family, yeah, I believe that that same thing, students, can happen to you at Missions Week this week. Amen. I believe that too, that that same Holy Spirit, yes, that captures the heart of a seven-year-old, a 17-year-old, a 30-year-old, yes, and then a 50, mid-50s, all this largest vision Dad's ever had, which is One Hope, which is a culmination of all that God did in his life. Yeah, he had at the age of 55. So, so whether you're a professor that's here and you're in your mid-50s, your greatest visions and dreams might still be ahead of you, or whether you're a young incoming freshman, yes, uh, don't underestimate the ability for the Holy Spirit to touch you during this Missions Week and transform your life, but also use it to transform the lives of, I believe, millions of people if you allow them to do it. Yeah. And that's what I, I've spent the last week in fasting and prayer looking forward to this week, and that's been the focus of my prayer. Wow. That the Holy Spirit will speak into the lives of many of your students here. Yeah, and they'll receive this call that God put on my life at seven, and, and, and God will put in their hearts the faith to believe that he will do the miraculous in their life as they follow him. Wow. That's our prayer too, and we're so grateful that y'all are here, and I can't wait for our students to hear more from you. And I think students just have to let go and let God. I think this generation just holds on to the what-ifs, how will that work out, how will I complete this, what does this look like? And it's like, when you hear the Lord say, go, you go. You know, I sometimes have a young person come to me and say, God's calling me to go to, you know, Timbuktu, what shall I do? I said, go. Go. No, no, no. They say, but I mean, uh, uh, who do I talk to? I said, go. I love that. Go. Just find a way. Just go. There. That's what he said to do.

Well, awesome. We could talk for hours about this, but like I do have a question for you, Chad. As the chair of the program, can you tell us about the School of Mission and the purpose of the School of Mission at SEU?

No, I would love to. We, we really want to offer world-class cross-cultural missional leadership development uh, across the entire network of SEU, beginning right here in Lakeland. And I think what really sets these programs apart is the focus on interdisciplinary specialization, yeah, and interdisciplinary competencies. So if you think about what's characterized Bob's life and, and One Hope as an organization, Bob and Hazel's life as, as missionaries, career missionaries, it's been their ability to work across sectors. They've worked in education, they've worked with government, they've worked with business, for-profit, nonprofit, and, and that we believe is really the future. So what's going to set these programs apart is going to be, you know, imagine a missional leadership program, but it's tailored to your gifting and your identity. Yeah. So maybe one student focuses on business skills, another on global education, a third on humanitarian relief and development, and a fourth on digital communications or software development, but all of them are getting a best-in-class core of competencies in missional architecture, missional entrepreneurship, cross-cultural work, and, and so we're super excited for students to come to the School of Michigan, but we're also excited to bring all of this development to all of the colleges of SEU. Wow. So even if you're not going to be one of our students, we're coming for you. I love that, because we want to strengthen the faith and work integration in every degree program at SCU. We, we, we're going to be working with uh, you know, I'm meeting with the, the business team today, meeting with the education team, the human services team, and we're saying, how can we strengthen this across the entire university? I love that. And I think One Hope just completed a, a, an incredible new research study called Global Gen Z. As far as we know, it's probably the largest ever um, study uh, globally of, of Gen Z, um, of, of you guys are listening right now, students, and uh, and what we're finding is that you are probably the most cause-oriented generation in the history of humanity. Like you value, um, making a difference and changing your world more than any generation to come before you. And, and, and you're not consumed as much, I think, as the millennials were, as your older brothers and sisters are, definitely my generation of boomers, yeah, with materialism.

Are, um, so true. You, you want to see the world change. Yeah. And, and I think that orientation says uh, being a missionary is not just about saying, oh, I'm going to put on a pith helmet and go into the jungles of Africa and learn another language. We need that too, of course, but even more so, what we're saying is, how do we as Christians, as believers, as followers of Christ, led by the Holy Spirit, go into every sphere of life and think missionally about what we're doing, whether we're doing it in business or whether we're in education or the medical field or sports or whatever it is God has put a special calling on your life and a passion for those things. That doesn't mean you're giving up mission. It means he's actually given you that hunger and thirst for that specific sphere of life, and the School of Mission is here to walk alongside of you in the years that you're here so that you can be a missionary in every sphere and every sector of human life. Amen. That's incredible. I couldn't agree more. And Rob is, Rob is uh, in a good position to talk about change. He just, he just has been published, um, a best-selling uh, book called Change Your World. I love that. Yeah, with a little-known guy named John Maxwell. So, so we co-authored Change Your World. That's incredible. And I've kind of, I kind of brought the reason John asked me to write the book. I mean, you know, he doesn't need anybody to co-author with him, but what he said is, he said, Rob, what I've seen at One Hope and really is the science of transformation that you guys have used to build these programs around the world and the outcomes that have produced out of that, what has been Chad and myself and a whole team of people that God has been speaking to under Dad's leadership that really created a science of transformation. Everybody talks about transformation, how do you do transformation? And so that's what we've been working on for 30 years. So John Maxwell came and just said, hey, Rob, um, I, if we're going to talk about Change Your World, I, I looked around the world and I said, um, who is doing it better than anybody else? And it was One Hope. Yes. And he said, how can we infuse this science of transformation and make it available because he's a great popularizer. I want to tell the students at SEU, this is the only school in America that actually is taking that science of transformation and putting it at the core curriculum and into the programs that Chad and the School of Mission will be leading right here at SEU. It's the science of transformation. I love that. It is the future. It is the future. And I love how you talked about these students not caring about materialism. Our students last year, because of the pandemic, were set to go all over the nations to preach the gospel, and when all the, you know, the borders were all closed, they still decided, let's raise the money as if we're going and send it. And our students sent over $250,000 globally. They didn't even get to go and serve, but they said, just because the walls are closed doesn't mean that these missionaries still couldn't use or benefit the funds to continue the projects that they're doing to further the kingdom. So it just goes to say our students, exactly what you said, they don't care about materialism. They care about impacting. Yeah. And I want, I don't want anybody to misconstrue what I'm saying when I say that you're non-materialistic, um, it doesn't mean that we are anti-uh, business or creation of wealth, of course not. In fact, I believe that many of you that are listening right now that have this call into business, yeah, um, have a passion to create wealth, and I've seen that in Dad's life. Dad and Mom were entrepreneurs, um, they, they self-supported themselves as tent makers, mainly through real estate development at the beginning of their lives, um, and, and so we have carried that same strand through our missiology of One Hope, uh, just as one small example, I took a, a, we as a group took a team, a young man directly out of college, out of a Christian college out in California, who, who I saw had this gift of entrepreneurship, but he had a missional heart. Sure. And I said, let's walk with him on a journey. Small story short, within One Hope, we incubated a business with him, and um, and after four years, um, we sold that business for more than $20 million. Wow. And all that money was given to mission. That's incredible. So, so we believe in wealth creation, correct? And it's the heart and the motive behind it. That's right. Um, you know, this young man didn't have a desire to build a business to, to gain $20 million for himself. His original intent and heart was, how do I create wealth through technology in order to benefit and bless the kingdom of God? Incredible. And so God has put these particular passions into your life, yeah, but all of them need to be focused, um, and have the spirit of our missionary God, yeah, who, who has one purpose on this planet, wow, which is to redeem all of humanity and creation. Amen. And we get to be part of that, that Holy Spirit creation uh, transformation, wow, by becoming missional in our thinking. That's why I'm so passionate, Chad, about the School of Mission and, and the curriculums and the teachings that you guys have put together uh, forever, as you said, for every college here at SEU. It's incredible.

Now, Bob and Rob, what does the naming of the school mean for you and your family? The naming? Yes, this is an interesting question. Uh, I made a decision many years ago that I didn't, I never wanted anything with my name on it. Uh-oh. Uh, I, I worked from a, a, a belief that you can have reward or recognition, yeah, and I decided I'd rather have reward than recognition. And so I, I say this, I hope it doesn't sound, you know, prideful, but many times I've had people want to put my name on something, and I always said no. But when this uh, uh, came in view, I came up here and actually visited with your president and your, and your leaders to know why they wanted to have a Bob and Hazel Hoskins School of Mission, and I wanted to determine that what they wanted was not my name, but they wanted to utilize what God had put into Hazel and I. Yeah, over the...

60-plus years of mission ministry and and once I determined that it it wasn't about the name, it was about the missiology that God has and and and and you know, Rob talks about we have been in the forefront of moving missions from being uh output-based to being outcome-based. There are many different things that God has put into us. And once I learned that the school wanted that, yeah, and then I said, well, then why do you need my name on it? I agreed all of that, but why do you need my name on it? And they gave a good answer. They said because uh we want our young people to to to recognize uh a young couple, yeah, who who pioneered and sacrificed to create uh these different mission programs around the world. We would like for them to know your story. And I had to sort of repent because I felt that there was sort of a I think a false pride in my saying I don't want my name on on anything. And a man came to me and said uh you know, they wanted me to to write my story. I said no, I don't want to write, you know, who's going to read my story? And and one man said to me, hey, it's not your story, wow, it's God's story. What God has done is in your life is His story, and and you're wrong not to tell the story. And so that's how I I feel about our name being on the on the school. We're honored, and you could not have said it better. It's our testimony, you know, to be shared. So thank you for this um great honor that we have now.

Chad, what can be expected from the programs in the school of mission?

Yeah, I think that you know, classically uh a missions program prepared someone to live long-term overseas, raise a lot of money, and kind of have a a single life track or life experience. And we really think that the world of of missional leadership and missional engagement's changing, yeah, uh that that it's it's transitioning from a time of generalist to a time of specialists, that's moving from single discipline to multi-disciplinary, and that there's a a mature majority world church that we're trying to serve effectively, right? So I think our school will be perfect for students who sense that they have a passion for more than one professional sector, yeah. So if you would be excited about having roles in for-profit companies and non-profit, yeah, I think you would love this. If if you anticipate a career that looks diverse, I think our program is a great fit. If God's calling you to serve diverse people, urban, immigrant populations, minority communities, or any sort of non-profit work, I think our program is fantastic. And if you see yourself serving in a local church or a local community, but maybe not preaching every Sunday, right, our program is going to be perfect for you. We will provide you with interdisciplinary training in two to three fields chosen by you with us based on your giftings and aligned with the kind of roles that you think God might be calling you to. Every student is going to get a custom experience, and that's what we're after because we think that's what it means to live missionally. Wow.

And how will it prepare and equip them for a future ministry for the students that enroll in this?

Yeah, so so the programs that we're creating are going to assume that the global church needs what the global church needs from us: our professional-level skills in education, medicine, technology, business development, digital communications, finance, data management, cryptocurrency, you name it, right? Aviation for sure, but all of that combined with ministry skills, yeah. So the programs we're creating will equip students with those types of competency sets, but also preparing them to be effective in cross-cultural settings. So you still have to learn about how to move through cultures, you still have to grow in that sort of self-awareness, and so it's it's really bringing all of that together. It's preparing you to live anywhere globally without needing to raise the traditional level of missionary funding because you will be so marketable that you'll be able to be supported by your receiving organization. I'll give you a quick story. I was talking with a denominational leader in East Africa, and he said, I cannot find people who are equipped with current digital communication competencies. I said, let me ask you a question: if I found an American for you who is willing to live just at local middle-class standards, whatever that is, you know, would you hire them and just pay their salary, and like maybe we can just skip the whole fundraising thing? He said, tomorrow. Wow. So I think there's a new paradigm that's being birthed in the global church where specializations in all sorts of diverse fields combined with cross-cultural competency, right, is going to produce an entire new generation of missional leaders. That's amazing. Wow. Powerful, Chad. That's awesome. That is—we're going to wrap up with one last question, Bob. Do you have any advice for our students who feel called to go into ministry and missions and may be currently considering enrolling in the school of mission?

Enroll right now. That's my favorite. Just do it. Don't hesitate. I love I love that.

Well, thank you guys so much for joining us today, Bob, Rob, and Chad. Um, I loved our time with you. I can't wait to just hear more of your story tonight and tomorrow morning. It's been such a blessing having you all on the show. Um, as usual, keep up with the latest SEO news and updates online and follow us on social media at SC University. I hope you all have an amazing week, and we look forward to connecting with you guys on SEO now next week. Have a great day. [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] you