EXPLORE - A customized career-assessment and personal development workshop

What is an EXPLORE Workshop?

EXPLORE Workshop is an intensive two-and-one-half-day experience providing time to examine personal gifts, interests, and achievements in light of the opportunities and demands of overseas ministry.  The purpose of the workshop is to glorify God by helping the church identify potential cross-cultural workers for God’s global harvest.  It does this by:

• Helping workshop participants assess their call, character, fit, and readiness for missionary service and identify practical next steps
• Providing feedback to the local church as it encourages and follows-up with participants.

 Up to twenty-two participants, senior year in high school or older, are selected by the church to attend.

• know Christ as personal Savior, have a consistent walk with Him, and desire to share Him with others
• actively serve in their local church
• are open to God’s calling to cross-cultural ministry
• pray and give regularly for missionary ministry and for those still outside the Kingdom
• sense God’s special calling on their lives and are asking, “What is the next step?”
• if married, are unified in their desire to seek God’s will together

What happens at a workshop?

• interactive seminars on topics such as spiritual life, physical and emotional health, life achievements, values, resources, education, and the “call” to missions
• personal screening and evaluation of physical and mental health
• extended time with missionaries and mission leaders who share their lives and personal missions experience
• in-depth individual interviews
• intercultural adaptability screening
• objective assessment and development of a clear plan of action

EXPLORE staff help each participant synthesize what he or she has learned and encourage each participant to verbalize individual goals and feelings about a career in missions.  After a concluding interview, each person will receive a written summary of his/her debrief interview.  Specific steps for further preparation and progress toward cross-cultural ministry are also included.  A designated person from the sending church receives a copy of the report for follow-up.

Who leads the workshop?

Dave Harthan is TEAM’s north central representative in Minneapolis, but before that he and his wife, JoAnne, were church planters for 20 years in Vienna, Austria.  Dave served on the field council and was field leader.  He graduated from Oak Hills Bible Institute, studied at Bryan College in Dayton, TN, and at Luther Rice Seminary.  He has a BS in Psychology from Northwestern College in St. Paul, MN, and an MA in Psychology and Counseling Services at St. Mary’s University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.  Dave also works off site for the New Member Development Department of TEAM.

Cathleen Lawler has a passion to connect God’s resources with God’s opportunities around the world.  Her interest in missions began in 1988 on her first short-term missions trip to Guatemala.  While working in the international broadcast field for 12 years, she served with Trans World Radio in The Netherlands.  For the last seven years she has been serving with TEAM in the area of mobilization and stewardship.  This offers her the opportunity to minister to and serve with many of the 600+ TEAM missionaries.  Having visited some 78 countries, Cathleen has many stories to share.

Gina Rollins came to TEAM in 2005 after almost 20 years in missionary service in Venezuela with the Christian & Missionary Alliance.  She and her husband were involved in church planting and Christian education during their time overseas.  During her time at TEAM Gina has been a part of the Division of Mobilization and is currently serving in Ministry Advancement as a regional director in the southeastern states of Florida, Georgia and Alabama.  She enjoys sharing stories of what God is doing all around the world with the many individuals and churches He is calling to partner with TEAM.  She and her husband were students at Toccoa Falls College in northeast Georgia.  Gina majored in Christian education and minored in missions.  They have four grown children who wouldn’t trade their M.K. experience for anything.

Mike Todd and his wife Lily were church planters in France for nine years before returning to the US to help care for aging and disabled family members.  He now serves as a missions coach in TEAM's Mobilization department, where he helps motivate and equip new workers for God's harvest fields around the world.   Mike describes himself as a “teacher, encourager, and resource guy."  He received  missions training both from his home church and from Columbia International University, where he completed a BA in Bible and an MA in Old Testament.  He and Lily live in South Florida, where Mike also serves as an adjunct Bible instructor for Davis College.

Bob and Pat Wright served in Venezuela from 1971 to 1986 at Christiansen Academy in Rubio.  Both were teachers in the school, and Bob served as principal of the school for several years and in other capacities of field leadership.  He has held various positions at TEAM’s headquarters since 1986, including Recruitment Coordinator, Assistant Director for Administration, and currently as Appointee Adviser.  Bob has a BA from Illinois State University in Secondary Education and an MA in Educational Ministries from Wheaton College Graduate School.  Pat worked at Wheaton College for eleven years before coming to TEAM.  She has a BS in Special Education from Illinois State and an MA from Wheaton in Interdisciplinary Studies.  Both are graduates of Moody Bible Institute.  Pat serves as Application Coordinator for missionary applications at TEAM.

In addition, each EXPLORE Workshop will have one or two missionaries as a part of the workshop.  These persons add the elements of fresh insight and personal relationship to the mix and, if possible, can be missionaries from the church in which EXPLORE takes place.  They relate their experiences and stories, answer questions, and conduct the session “What is it like to be a missionary?”  Participants find this element of the workshop most valuable.

What are the costs involved?

• Transportation for three facilitators.  
• Transportation includes any expenses incurred such as airport car storage, mileage, and airfare
• Food and lodging for facilitators and meals for the missionaries while at the workshop
• $65 per participant for materials

Where are the workshops held?
So that the optimum benefit is realized at EXPLORE Workshops sponsored by churches, we recommend that the workshop be held at a location away from home and church—for example a retreat center, camp, hotel, or lodge.  Uninterrupted time away from the pressures of home, jobs, and family is the ideal.  However, many churches have opted to hold the workshop in the church, allowing people to return home each evening.  The EXPLORE team will honor the church’s preference.  Sample schedules are available upon request.

What role does the church play?The church will make the selection of people who attend the workshop, keeping in mind the criteria listed above. The church obtains the site for the workshop and is responsible to make arrangements for transport of the EXPLORE facilitators from airport to workshop, unless the facilitators are driving in.  The church is responsible for providing four meals and snacks at break time for participants and facilitators.

A representative of the church staff or missions committee is urged to attend the workshop.  As the church desires, they can have part in the session called, “What Is the Next Step?’  EXPLORE staff presents the general requirements from a mission agency perspective and the church presents its plan to help missionary candidates as they process along to missionary service.