History of The Traveling Team
THE VISION
In the 1800’s, John R. Mott and Robert E. Speer started The Student Volunteer Movement. At the time the word “missions” was not jargon and the idea of it was not at all popular, these men traveled from campus to campus to call students to lay their lives down for the lost of the world. The phrase for the movement was “The evangelization of the world in this generation” and they raised up 100,000 college students to The Great Commission. There have been many traveling teams since, but it is from this group of early passionate college students that The Traveling Team Inc. would find their vision.
THE PIONEERS
A visionary named Steve Shadrach was deeply inspired by the impact of the Student Volunteer Movement. He is the founder of a campus ministry called Student Mobilization, a ministry which evangelizes and makes disciples on college campuses. Yet one of Steve’s greatest visions was for a group of students to travel from campus to campus and mobilize for missions in a way that modeled the Student Volunteer Movement. For years Steve would cast vision to students to launch out traveling teams that would ignite vision and passion for the world in others, the same way he had been impacted. Todd Ahrend caught that vision. After getting 6 months of exposure to thirteen countries in the 10/40 Window and receiving training by top missionaries, Todd began to put together the first team and staff personnel needed.
He’d call it “The Traveling Team.” Their heartbeat was to be the mobilization of Christian college students on secular college campuses to understand and take personally the will and command of Christ to preach the gospel to all nations.
TEAM ONE… YEAR ONE
In the fall of 1999, Todd, his wife and two singles set out to make this vision a reality. With the help of three staff in the office, this pioneer traveling team had great success! Since that first team and first year, The Traveling Team has grown from a single team to three teams traveling each school year. The U.S. was split into 12 regions, with a team tackling one region each semester, then rotating forward. A team is retired after completing all 12 regions over a 6-year lap around the country. Over 10 teams have finished this accomplishment over the last 266 years of ministry, as of Fall 2025.
Since 1999, The Traveling Team has received national recognition in several missions’ publications and the endorsement of the major college ministries found on campus today. We continue to mobilize thousands of students every school year, adding to the total number of students impacted over the course of their ministry.
THE TARGET
The Traveling Team’s target audience is the Christian college student who would never, otherwise,gotoamissions' conference, due to a lack of interest or a belief that it does not apply to his or her life. They are in the most teachable, moldable, and mobilizable time in their life, yet most will go through all four years of college and never be exposed to God’s heart for the world in a way that they can relate to. The teams travel to campus ministry meetings, churches, retreats and conferences to educate and activate to God’s global cause.
