What we do at CIT
Equip to Flourish, Prepare to Serve
Overview
Ministry can be stressful. Cross-cultural ministry will be more stressful. Studies show that the stress associated with cross-cultural entry and transition, ministry ambiguity, and conflict are major contributors to failure in cross-cultural ministry. Thatʼs the bad news. The good news is that the CIT program is designed to prepare you to survive and succeed, whether you are moving to a new country, returning “home” after years overseas, or looking for support with any other cross-cultural transition.
Training Principles
CIT values a holistic approach to the learning process. While the principle and skill aspects of cross-cultural preparation can be segmented into bite-sized subject matter, they are lived out in an integrated whole. Therefore, our programming attempts to integrate our values throughout the participants’ learning experience with us. We believe in community, age-appropriate learning, and spiritual formation.
“As mature Christians, we think we know the Bible (and ourselves) well enough to become cross cultural workers. But in the relative isolation of the North Carolina mountains, we found out how much we don’t know and how God-sized the work is. We lived in a community something like the church in Acts and built and tested relationships like never before. We learned to use the Bible to question and answer what we heard taught… I can’t imagine what a mess I’d have made of things if I had gone to the field without CIT.”
Overview
Ministry can be stressful. Cross-cultural ministry will be more stressful. Studies show that the stress associated with cross-cultural entry and transition, ministry ambiguity, and conflict are major contributors to failure in cross-cultural ministry. Thatʼs the bad news. The good news is that the CIT program is designed to prepare you to survive and succeed, whether you are moving to a new country, returning “home” after years overseas, or looking for support with any other cross-cultural transition.
Training Principles
CIT values a holistic approach to the learning process. While the principle and skill aspects of cross-cultural preparation can be segmented into bite-sized subject matter, they are lived out in an integrated whole. Therefore, our programming attempts to integrate our values throughout the participants’ learning experience with us. We believe in community, age-appropriate learning, and spiritual formation.
Community Environment
- Character
- Vulnerability/Transparency
- Body Life
- Family Friendly
- Forgiveness
- Trust
- Cultural Understanding
- Contextualization
- Small Groups
- History Giving
- On-Campus Living
- Campus Mayor Responsibilities
Age-Appropriate Learning
- Age-Appropriate Learning Principles
- Sensitive to diverse personalities & learning styles
- Holistic Philosophy
- Cognitive
- Affective
- Volitional
- Psychomotor
- Reflective
- Social
- Family Sensitive
- Facilitator Style vs. Professor Style
Spiritual Formation
- Identity
- Self-Righteousness / Righteousness of God
- Self-Reliance/Reliance on God
- Self-Satisfaction/Satisfaction in God
- Humility/Servanthood
- Incarnational
- Counter Ethnocentrism
CIT Residential Courses
Pre-Field Training: Equipping for Cross-Cultural Life and Ministry
Cross-cultural living creates unique challenges for individuals, families, and especially for ministry.
Cross-cultural living and ministry creates unique stresses on the individual cross-cultural worker and family in a variety of ways. We will address those issues and seek to prepare you to successfully navigate those critical areas. We will address the practical and theoretical tools needed for ministry in a cross-cultural context
In this course you will learn, among many other things, about yourself and the complexity of how to enter a new culture. Although you will gain new tools, the focus is on the skill of the Master Carpenter. Success in cross-cultural ministry is not what you can do, but what He can do through you.
We will:
- Explore the unique stresses of moving overseas and provide tools to help in the transition.
- Identify how expectations play a role in cross-cultural adjustment.
- Identify the special stresses affecting marriages and ways to maintain and improve a healthy marriage.
- Discover the unique needs of Third Culture Kids (TCK’s) and learn how to help them develop into normal, healthy, productive adults.
- Analyze the special needs of single workers and find ways to help singles and married couples relate well together.
- Identify and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the various educational options for families and their children.
- Clarify the unique roles and needs of both men and women on the field with special emphasis on helping women find fulfillment and a sense of purpose.
- Explore the phenomenon of culture shock, its causes, its effects on relationships, and ways to cope with the effects.
- Introduce the basic theoretical perspectives and research tools for cross-cultural study.
- Learn how to apply principles and data of social organization to formulating mission strategy.
Your tuition for the equipping program includes access to our CIT 2.0 courses for workers arriving in their new country of service. Learn cultural sensitivities, customs, practical survival skills, and joining a team. These courses are designed to use just-in-time learning to help you apply all that you learned while attending the equipping course. Equip yourself to make a lasting impact and build meaningful connections in your field.
Language Learning Accelerator Course
Sharing the Gospel cross-culturally in a second language is no easy task.
In this course you will learn a wide variety of practical skills for successful language learning including helping you understand your abilities and developing a practical strategy to be an effective communicator of the most important message.
This course introduces a wide variety of skills for successful language learning. Participants will learn principles of effective language learning, practice language learning activities, and train the ears to hear and the mouth to reproduce sounds in other languages. They will learn to become proactive in language learning and acquire resources to help master language learning. Participants will practice language learning methods with native speakers and receive planning guidelines on how best to approach language learning when on the field.
Your tuition for the Language Learning Accelerator program includes access to our CIT 2.0 LLA courses for workers learning a new language. This course is designed to help you apply what you learned during your time at CIT’s LLA program.
Debrief Retreat
As a cross- cultural worker, you belong to a small group of people for whom change is an even larger part of their lives than it is for others.
The issue, however, is not the change in and of itself, it is how we deal with change. Some of us ignore it and become outdated, others resent and oppose it and become hardened, and others, believe it or not, thrive on it.
You may be coming on Home Ministry, or you may be returning to retire, or to transition into a new phase of life and ministry here. Whatever the reason, many things will have changed: the people and places you knew, the customs you remember, the types of cereal you bought, the songs they sang in your church, and even you!
The debrief week is designed to give you time and opportunity to share your life and ministry and to think through the issues and challenges, but also the joys of change and transition.
Field Security Seminar
CCI’s Field Security Seminar is a three-day interactive training for faith-based workers living in or traveling to higher risk environments around the globe. The course is taught by CCI’s experienced security experts and, like other CIT courses, utilizes adult learning techniques (a mixture of classroom instruction, discussion groups, real case studies, and live simulations) to help participants understand, evaluate, and appropriately respond to the types of security risks which may be encountered overseas.
During the Field Security Seminar participants will learn how to:
- Think proactively about security risks
- Exercise leadership in field emergencies
- Develop situational and environmental awareness
- Understand best practices in avoiding a security incident
- Identify and counteract basic and advanced surveillance
- Manage and survive violent encounters and active shooters
- Manage interrogation
- Manage carjackings
- Survive a hostage event
- Avoid becoming the target of an attack
- Manage group travel security
- Manage checkpoints
- Survive vehicle ambushes
- Understand the dynamics of landmines and IEDs
If you are interested in attending a Field Security Seminar, please register directly with CIT. Contact us at citmail@cit-online.org if you have any questions.
Engage Retreat (5 Day Spiritual Retreat)
Through the Gospel we are called to a renewal of heart and mind, a life being transformed that we may become more like Christ and imitate His ways of loving, serving and leading. It is an invitation to a life intertwined with the heart of God for the world, an authentically missional life in which ministry flows out of being.
Mesa Global, formerly UWM, desires this kind of life for all missionaries, staff, and for everyone we serve with around the world. In cooperation with CIT, Mesa Global is offering a spiritual retreat designed to provide a biblically rich, Christ-centered process within an Evangelical framework that prepares servants for growing in Christ-likeness in the context of busy ministry. This retreat draws from some of the best Christian practices and teachings in Christian history.
Retreat Includes:
- A guided process using “Rooted Deeply” by Chad Hollowell
- “7 Sins & Virtues Examen” by Chad Hollowell
- Short teachings on helpful spiritual disciplines and themes on spirituality
- Space for guided reflections and spiritual friendships
- Contact Paul Johnson with questions about the retreat: pjohnson@mesaglobal.co
- Contact CIT with any questions about registration/housing: 800-877-1786 or citmail@cit-online.org
