Results of Urbana 03
Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done
God met us in amazing ways at Urbana 03. Here are some of the facts:
Participants
19,247 participants attended Urbana 03, including:
2,753 delegates without United States or Canadian citizenships
1,379 missionary representatives
1,272 InterVarsity staff and volunteers
798 pastors, church leaders and faculty
Gender
| Male | 43% |
| Female | 57% |
Age
| Age 17-24 | 68% |
| Age 25-30 | 13% |
| Age 31+ | 19% |
Ethnicity of Participants
There were more students of color at this convention than any other in Urbana's history, with forty-four percent of the delegates being of non-white descent. Students could choose more than one ethnicity.
| White | 55.7% | 56.7% |
| Asian American | 27.8% | 25.9% |
| African American | 5.0% | 4.31% |
| Hispanic/Latino | 3.8% | 2.59% |
| Native American & First Nations |
1.7% | .47% |
| Unspecified | 6.0% | 6.13% |
Countries Represented
There were 148 different countries of origin represented at Urbana 03.
| United States | 15,175 | 78.8% |
| Canada | 1,319 | 6.9% |
| Korea | 404 | 2.1% |
| Japan | 163 | .9% |
| India | 96 | .5% |
| Hong Kong | 92 | .5% |
| Indonesia | 80 | .4% |
| China | 71 | .4% |
| Taiwan | 66 | .3% |
| Mexico | 35 | .2% |
Denominations Represented
A total of 81 denominations were represented at Urbana 03. Over 280 Churches sent 10+ people.
| Independent / Inter & nondenominational | 3,772 | 19.6% |
| Baptist (not listed below) | 1,983 | 10.3% |
| Presbyterian (not listed below) | 1,192 | 6.2% |
| Evangelical Free Church | 1,072 | 5.6% |
| Presb. Church USA (UPCUSA & PCUSA) | 763 | 4.0% |
| Christian and Missionary Alliance | 560 | 2.9% |
| Presbyterian Church in America | 538 | 2.8% |
| Southern Baptist | 538 | 2.8% |
| Methodist | 415 | 2.16% |
| Baptist General Conference | 327 | 1.7% |
The Program
At Urbana 03, Kingdom of God theology and missiology was developed through Bible teaching, the arts (theatre sketches based on scripture, fresh musical forms, videos), student testimonies and a variety of missions speakers.
Seminars & Exhibits
Each afternoon the delegates could choose from seminars designed to help them grow in their understanding of cross-cultural and urban missions. There were 283 seminars led by 210 seminar leaders-110 InterVarsity staff from the U.S. and Canada and 100 invited guests, including International Fellowship of Evangelical Students representatives.
There were 261 exhibiting organizations composed of 55 seminaries/training programs and 206 mission agencies. Booths at the exhibit halls were a colorful display ranging from rock climbing walls to a replica of the Taj Mahal. There were 1,370 registered exhibit representatives, who offered to the delegates 330 Agency Presentations.
Tracks at Urbana
There were four residential tracks that ran during the program at this Urbana: the Mission Integration Track (400), the International Student Track (950), and the Canadian Student Leadership Track (70) and the Mission Integration Track (400). A small but strategic track at Urbana 03 gathered Conference Directors leading or planning to develop student mission events around the world. Directors attended from Korea, Europe, Africa, Latin America, New Zealand, and India.
Prayer
The prayer team took shifts to provide 24 hour-a-day intercession. Nearly 100 prayer ministers prayed for almost 8,000 delegates twice daily in their afternoon sessions on critical discipleship topics such as intimacy with God, sexual healing, racial healing and other selected seminars. Several hundred delegates visited the quiet prayer rooms each day, and many of them received prayer from the prayer monitors. Finally, a crisis team of professional counselors provided pastoral care to delegates in crisis.
Decisions
12,942 delegates responded to God's mission in the following areas:
GOD'S REIGN: I want God to reign over my life, and to obey God's will as taught in the Bible. Today I am renouncing my idols and committing to following Jesus.
10,936 indicated they wanted God to reign over their life, and obey God's will as taught in the Bible
8,103 renounced their idolatry of comfort and money and will let Jesus give them security, safety and control their resources
7,526 renounced their idolatry of success and will let Jesus define success in their lives and control their future
6,832 renounced their idolatry of belonging and will let Jesus define their identity and control their sexuality
6,158 made a renewal of their commitment to Jesus
4,515 wrote in to renounce idols in their lives that were not listed on the survey
83 made first time commitments to follow Jesus
MY WITNESS: To express God's reign over my life, and to obey God's will as taught in the Bible, today I commit to pray regularly for lost people, and to intentionally and regularly invite them to follow Jesus.
11,909 committed to pray regularly for lost people, and to intentionally and regularly invite them to follow Jesus (92% of the delegates responded to the call of evangelism, a record at Urbana!)
GLOBAL AND CROSS-CULTURAL MISSIONS: To express God's reign over my life, and to obey God's will as taught in the Bible, I believe God is guiding me to move into another culture to become an intentional witness for Jesus. By God's grace, I intend to serve…
8,368 committed to express God's reign over their lives, and to obey God's will as taught in the Bible.
3,800 plan to serve in 2004
1,927 plan to serve in 2005
1,217 plan to serve in 2006
3,723 plan to serve later in life
413 plan to serve a few hours in another culture
2,367 plan to serve 1-2 weeks in another culture
3,145 plan to serve 1-3 months in another culture
1,948 plan to serve 1-3 years in another culture
2,067 plan to serve over 3 years in another culture
First Night Student Evaluation Results
Almost 3000 first night surveys were completed by students attending Urbana. Preliminary reports show that 43% attended Urbana to learn about missions and 68% to "seek God's will for my life." Over half read the Bible daily, almost 40% read it weekly, and 72% participate in or lead a weekly Bible study. Delegates are serious about prayer: 86% pray alone daily and 76% participate in or lead a weekly prayer group. However, before Urbana very few report fasting (60% rarely) or giving to missions (46% rarely). They are more likely to give to their local church (42% weekly; 37% monthly.) Interestingly, 80% of respondents said they have a cross-cultural friendship.
Last Night Student Evaluation Results
A group of 2,969 delegates were surveyed on the last night of Urbana 03
82.9% indicated that they gave in the Urbana 03 offering
77.3% indicated that they were going to be more intentional in their witness about Jesus
73.7% indicated that they were going to pray more for the world
41.4% indicated that they found an organization at Urbana that they might be interested in serving with
36.2% indicated that they felt a specific call to missions
Please pray for these students as they live out the commitments they made at Urbana 03.
Offering Given to Physically and Spiritually Poor
| $1 million | given in offering |
| $78,000 | saved by lunch fast on December 30 |
| $100,000 | additional donations made over the web and after the convention |
| $1,178,000 | TOTAL |
Visit www.urbana.org/go/offering for information on the recipients.
In addition, students were also challenged to take immediate practical steps on what they learned, applying the Bible study in Luke 3 by giving away over 2,000 pieces of clothing and fasting over lunch.
Urbana.org
Urbana 03 general sessions were published on the web, including journalistic reports, and video versions of most speakers, 2100 videos and theatre pieces.
During the week of the convention we had nearly 31,000 visits to the website from 14,000 unique visitors (who contributed $5,000 to the convention offering). As of May 2004, there were over 23,192 unique viewers viewing 275,755 streaming media clips.
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