When leaders at Uptick, a ministry of the Baptist General Association of Virginia, wanted to strengthen the intercultural intelligence of its teams, they turned to the Tyndale Intercultural Ministries (TIM) Centre at Tyndale University.

“Even that term — intercultural intelligence — is something we learned from TIM,” explains Uptick’s founder, John Chandler. “The way the TIM Centre trains is not simply to download information for participants, but to help people experience something and then reflect on their experience. That’s rare and valuable.”

The TIM Centre offers an intercultural assessment process to train and coach Christians engaged in local and global missions, sometimes even welcoming teams like Uptick to its home in Toronto.

The Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) is a tool used by the TIM Centre to help participants assess and reflect on where they are in their intercultural journey. Using a six-stage continuum, the IDI helps people obtain an understanding of, and facility with, healthy intercultural engagement, both as individuals and as part of a team.

“It’s about everything from self-awareness to pushing the needle of intercultural conversation and being pointed in the right direction,” says Timothy Tang, director of the TIM Centre. “Most people think they are further along the continuum than they actually are.”