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What Is Pre-Field Training?

Pre-field training is a 4–6 week residential program designed for cross-cultural workers. It covers essential topics like:

• Language acquisition
• Culture shock
• Team dynamics
• Healthy transitions
• Stress management
• Grief and loss
• Cultural identity
• Conflict resolution

For families, there’s parallel training for children and teens that mirrors the adult curriculum, giving families a shared language for navigating hard topics together.

Want to Know more --> Read Pre-Field Preparation

Why Is It So Important?

It Invests in the Goers - Preparing to go overseas is overwhelming. Many are still working, raising support, selling belongings, finalizing paperwork, and soaking up time with loved ones—all while carrying the emotional weight of goodbyes. Pre-field training offers a pause. It’s a chance to step away from the chaos and be poured into by people who’ve walked this road. It says to Goers: You matter more than what you can do or how fast you can do it.

It invests in Families - Lauren Wells says it well in her bookRaising Up a Generation of Healthy TCKS - "It has been amazing to see the transformation of kids when they realize they too can have a toolbox of ways to learn culture and language when they move overseas. They feel a sense of purpose instead of feeling like they are just tagging along with their parents, and they have a foundational knowledge of the TCK life that they are entering into. Pre-field training is a great starting place for preventative care." (pg. 22)

It Covers What Discipleship May Miss - Cross-cultural ministry brings unique challenges. Even seasoned believers may never have learned how to grieve the loss of everything familiar or manage the stress of living in a foreign context. This work requires not just spiritual maturity, but practical resilience. A worker’s ability to navigate daily life overseas can make or break their incarnational witness.

It Normalizes the Struggles - Pre-field training helps Goers set realistic expectations for the emotional and psychological challenges they’ll face—especially in the first two years. Recognizing a struggle as normal and having tools to address it can be the difference between thriving and burning out.

It Helps Avoid Costly Mistakes - Consider the quote from a pre-field trainer “Everyone will make a million mistakes. We’re here to help you avoid the 10,000-point ones.” Cultural blunders are inevitable (and often make great stories), but major relational or ministry-damaging missteps can often be prevented with basic awareness and preparation.

It Benefits the Receiving Team - We recommend pre-field training as one of the final steps before launch. By then, Goers have likely moved out of their homes and said many goodbyes. Training gives space to grieve, reflect, and arrive on the field filled up—not depleted. It equips them with tools for culture, stress, and conflict—tools that will make the transition smoother for both the worker and existing team members

As a Reliant International team, we have experienced time and time again the benefits of having a set-aside time, prior to heading overseas for cross-cultural training. While the preparation that has come from the sending church generally covers 90% of what’s needed, it is wise to consider what missiological and experiential training is also needed.

Cross-cultural ministry requires a high level of flexibility, interpersonal skills, and personal resilience. For someone to enter into this type of long-term ministry environment without taking time to be equipped and transition well will decrease their effectiveness in integrating into the culture at best. At worst it can be extremely harmful to the worker and those close to him or her.

We recognize that in our day, we have access to abundant resources at the tip of our fingers, anytime day or night. While this is a tremendous blessing, it can also work in the opposite direction and increase guilt or loneliness for workers who are struggling, when it seems like they should know all the right answers. There is a different type of transformation that happens in an in-person setting, as others walk alongside you with grace and encouragement.

We have partnered with two great organizations that have decades of experience preparing workers to successfully make the transition to a foreign context. We require all Reliant International workers to attend one of these trainings before launching, unless a ministry has arranged for its team members to receive this training from another source.

For married couples or families with children, pre-field training will not only give you the tools you need as an individual but will equip your family with common words and language to talk about the often hard-to-articulate struggles of culture shock and life overseas. This is not just an investment in your ministry, it is an investment in the health and success of your family on the field.

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Based in Colorado

Offers 4-week COMPASS program that combines cross-cultural training and language acquisition

Nursery for 6 weeks-1 year; Age-appropriate cross-cultural curriculum for children 2-17.

Dorm-style housing (All meals are provided in the cost)

COMPASS: appx. $4,800/adult

A few of the Covered Topics include:

• Culture Shock & Transitions
  
• Cultural Adaptation
• Managing Expectations for Overseas Life & Ministry
  
• Healthy Team Dynamics
• Stress Management
• Healthy Life Rhythms
• Tools for Cross-Cultural Study
• TCKs (Third Culture Kids)
• Language Acquisition

Please see the websites above for more detailed overviews, scheduling, and pricing. You may need to pay a small deposit to hold your spot, and then the remaining balance can be billed directly to Reliant and paid from your MTD fund. All costs for travel, food, and lodging are reimbursable. Reach out to international@reliant.org with any questions.

Common Objections

We understand that there may be multiple reasons why you don't want to attend pre-field training. You are not the first! Here are some of the common reasons people want to opt-out. Please take some time to read through these if you have similar concerns.

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Training Partners

As a Reliant International team, we continually see the cost-benefit ratio on cross-cultural training to be completely worth it. While no training is perfect at eliminating Goer attrition, the majority of the attrition we have seen opted to not go through a training program like this in order to get to the field more quickly. As an organization, we will always default to what the partner needs. However, if we made requirements and policies for what cross-cultural workers do prior to going overseas, this would be one of them. Also, we want to assure you that Reliant does not receive any type of kickback or profit from your participation.

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Reliant partners with two training facilities, which serve agencies and sending churches across the United States. It is the expectation that all international workers who are newly launching to the field for 1+ years attend one of these programs. Exceptions are considered when alternate training is provided, whether before launching or as part of an overseas training program.