JACKSON, Tenn. — March 17, 2026 — Multicultural missionary teams are the future, Ben Hoskins argued at the sixth annual W.D. Powell Missions Lecture in Union University’s Harvey Auditorium March 10.
“We're seeing the landscape changing,” said Hoskins, Union’s current missionary-in-residence and an East Asian cluster leader for the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board. “With the maturing of the global church, we're seeing a shift in what global missions looks like. And the global church is now very much joining us in the Great Commission.”
Hoskins’ lecture, titled “From Everywhere to Everyone: How the Global Church is Taking the Gospel to the Nations,” was sponsored by the School of Theology and Missions and the IMB. The event was created in remembrance of W.D. Powell, a Union alumnus and missionary to Mexico in the 1880s.
“We need to be encouraged to hear what God is doing in the world, raising up people to send them out and use them in his church,” said Justin Wainscott, associate dean for university ministries and for the School of Theology and Missions. “The mission field is becoming the mission force, and we heard Ben share that this afternoon.”
Hoskins first outlined the current state of the global church, drawing attention to both the under-engaged urban areas and the over 3,000 unengaged and unreached people groups that still exist in the world.
“You would think that with all of this increasing globalization and urbanization, access would be opening up,” Hoskins said. “And yet, geopolitical realities are seeing that it's actually becoming more difficult for missionaries to find access to those unengaged, unreached people groups.”
The solution to this problem, according to Hoskins, lies with the global church.
“They can go places we can't go,” Hoskins said. “They have passion. They have a willingness to count the cost. They have massive, increasing numbers. The Lord is opening up doors for the nations to reach the nations.”
Currently, about half of the global mission force is non-Western. Soon, Hoskins predicted, the Western church will become the minority. However, Hoskins still urged Southern Baptists to continue engaging internationally.
“I definitely have had missions on my heart since middle school,” said Zoe Leatherwood, a Union Master of Social Work student who attended the lecture. “But what would it look like for me to be in one of those under-engaged cities? To be part of a multicultural team?”
According to Hoskins, these multicultural missionary teams are something that IMB leadership is eager to support.
“I try to avoid terminology like passing the baton,” Hoskins said. “We're not passing the baton. We are setting up to work together — go hand in hand. Just because the global church is rising up to take the gospel to the nations doesn't mean our work is finished.”
The rise of global church missions should invigorate the Western church to listen to God’s calling, proposed Hoskins. Though all people groups face different challenges when engaging in cross-cultural gospel conversations, Hoskins encouraged the lecture attendees to not give up, learn about international missions and listen for God’s calling in their lives.
“I didn’t know almost anything about missions before coming to Union,” Leatherwood said. “But my friends here, the classes I have taken, GO Trips I have gone on, things like that, all just shaped the way that I view missions. I’ve been able to see it become tangible.”
To Hoskins, short-term mission trips and cultural experiences are a starting point — a way to open up minds and hearts to see, understand and love the nations. Then, these multicultural teams can begin to be built.
“Neighbors are being raised up, but there are still so few,” Hoskins said. “More laborers are needed for the harvest. It's our work together as Southern Baptists, and now, our work together with the global church.”