Urbana Case Study

Vision-Casting Document for Urbana 96
by Dan Harrison

"Truly this is the most influential ongoing convention I've been to. Very high quality. Thanks."- Urbana delegate

The primary purpose of the Urbana Student Mission Convention is to help students become world Christians and serve in the global mission of the church. Everyone at Urbana should understand the historic diversity of the world mission effort, and that God continues to have a unique and strategic role in world missions for people of many denominational traditions, all cultures and races, varying abilities and both genders. Urbana should be a place where believers are called to practice reconciliation with one another as we learn about evangelistic reconciliation to God. Students and recent graduates should commit themselves to personal involvement in mission, which they may choose to make public on the delegate decision card. We hope that international students will see their unique roles in teaching North Americans how to partner with them in global ministry.

"My life's been changed." - Urbana delegate

There is a wealth of anecdotal evidence that Urbana achieves these goals. Everywhere I go I hear wonderful personal stories of the impact of Urbana on the lives of Christ's people. These stories are compelling and give a powerful human voice to the Urbana movement over the past 50 years. Let me share just a few with you.

Lezlie Wright was a freshman at the University of New Brunswick in the fall of 1993. The staff worker of her high school youth group back home organized a group of students to attend Urbana 93, and Lezlie joined, not knowing what to expect. At Urbana, God gave Lezlie a vision for the mission field of her campus, and on commitment night she filled out her decision card, indicating a commitment to become more involved in InterVarsity on her campus. Once Lezlie found IV at the University of New Brunswick, she told the group of her Urbana experience. The excitement that she had found through God's working at Urbana infected her chapter and the relationships she formed there. Due in part to Lezlie's leadership of the chapter at a very important time in its growth, the group increased tenfold in size to 130 members. Lezlie's commitment on the decision card at Urbana 93 placed her almost immediately into perfect missions training opportunity in her own back yard.

Morse Tan is another Urbana 93 delegate who followed-up his commitment very shortly after returning from the convention. He got a vision at Urbana to communicate the gospel via computers on the Internet. He and other students at Wheaton College have started ComputeReach Ministries to share God's extravagant love among the 35 million users of the Internet worldwide. Morse reports they've seen several people accept Christ through this outreach.

Urbana often brings together groups of committed Christians from similar ethnic heritages. A movement of Japanese-American Christians began this way at Urbana 90. This movement is called the Japanese Christian Fellowship Movement, and it all began with one Japanese-American Christian student who came to Urbana hoping to find other Japanese-Americans. She found 50 others and they collectively decided to be missionaries on their campuses for Jesus, reaching out to Japanese students studying in North America. They also provide aid in reintegrating new believers back into Japanese culture as a large number return to Japan after their studies. This group sees about 1,600 conversions a year through their ministry. To see the true power of the Japanese Christian Fellowship Movement consider the fact that 1000 missionaries working in Japan see about 1,600 conversions total every year.

Another group that had its beginnings at Urbana is the African Christian Fellowship. Watson Omulokoli was an InterVarsity staff worker in Wisconsin who had a vision for organizing fellowships of Africans studying all over the U.S. and impacting U.S. campuses through these fellowships. Urbana 76 offered Watson the opportunity to network with other Africans and share this vision which translated into the founding of ACF which thrived on campus for many years.

There are at least twenty other student mission conventions that have spread from Urbana. Two Focus Kenya staff attended Urbana 87 and founded the Commission conference which has been held every three years since.

"Thank you and thank God for this convention." Urbana delegate

In addition to these wonderful stories that we are able to collect, the Urbana staff does a thorough evaluation of each convention experience. While the impact of a discipleship process can not necessarily be quantified, the numbers and information that we gather in this process confirm our belief that Urbana consistently achieves its goals and that thousands of young Christians have been challenged with the needs of the world and have responded enthusiastically to missions.

There have been 17 Urbana Student Mission Conventions over the past 50 years, beginning in 1946 in Toronto, Ontario. Over these 50 years, 176,951 delegates have attended Urbana. Our studies have shown that no more than 10% of Urbana delegates have previously been to an Urbana, and the majority of those Urbana alumni are either staff or exhibit representatives. Factoring out the 10% of alumni delegates, over 150,000 individuals have attended an Urbana convention.

Urbana draws a very committed group of young Christian students. At both Urbana 87 and Urbana 93 we distributed a survey to a demographically stratified sample of Urbana delegates. The purpose of this survey was to assess the attitudes and spiritual commitment of the delegates at these two conventions. The data shows that the average Urbana delegate is a strongly committed Christian who has hope for the future and a desire to be used by God in their world.

Urbana 87 Delegate Profile:
* 81 % have been Christians for at least five years.
* 96% attend church at least once a week.
* 31 % have already been on a cross-cultural mission project of at least one month.
* 45% have led someone to the Lord.

* 65% talked with someone about their faith in Jesus Christ in the month prior to the convention.
* 71 % rate their church life as being very important.
* 83% respond that their life is greatly influenced by God.

Urbana 93 Delegate Profile:
* 77% have been Christians for at least five years
* 93% attend church at least once a week.
* 27% have already been on a cross-cultural mission project of at least one month.
* 43% have led someone to the Lord.
* 60% talked with someone about their faith in Jesus Christ within the month prior to the convention.
* 90% believe that they have something to offer as a missionary in another culture.

The Urbana Student Mission' Convention has consistently drawn a committed group of delegates. Urbana provides a place for those who have a strong commitment to Christ to be challenged to live out that commitment in cross-cultural service.

At each Urbana, delegates are given the opportunity to respond to the challenge by filling out a decision card. It is on this card that students can state their commitment to be involved personally in the world mission of the church. Looking back over the past six Urbanas, from Urbana 79 through Urbana 93, a total of 67,891 delegates have turned in decision cards indicating their commitment to world missions. This represents 66% of the delegates from those six conventions.

"[Urbana] really made an impact on how I looked at missions. I need to make a commitment or what am doing?" - Urbana delegate

While we do not have data from each Urbana since 1946, an extrapolation of the above data to the entire delegate pool over all Urbana Student Mission Conventions would suggest that as many as 116,000 people have committed themselves to be involved in the world mission of the church throughout the 50 years of the Urbana movement.

It is clear that a majority of delegates at Urbana conventions commit themselves to be involved in the world mission of the church. But the impact of Urbana on world missions would be diminished greatly if those delegates did not walk out their commitments after the convention. In order to quantify the follow through of delegates, we did one study of Urbana decision makers four years after the convention. This study found that a full 43% of the decision makers had either begun or already had definite plans to begin some form of mission service. This represents 6,450 new missionaries on the field or on their way to the field as a result of Urbana 84. Of these, 2,400 had either begun or had definite plans to begin long term service on the mission field!

Urbana 93 delegate Ken Luebeck reminds us of the strength that the world mission of the church will receive through the faithfulness of these decision makers. "Even if only a fraction of Urbana 96 delegates go on to help re-awaken the church toward spreading Jesus Christ, then the power gathered at Urbana will be enough to move the world."

One of the major components of Urbana is the opportunity for delegates to explore ministry opportunities with a number of mission agencies as well as training and educational opportunities with various graduate schools and seminaries. As delegates walk out their Urbana commitments, they need to have agencies that can provide the overseas opportunities and training that they need. Urbana 93 delegate Patrice Sorenson tells us that Urbana provides this service quite well. "We just got back from Africa Inland Mission orientation school and have been accepted by them. Of the 40 candidates, 30 had gone to Urbana and mentioned the impact of it in their personal testimonies."

In our post-Urbana evaluations we solicit feedback from a number of different audiences, including speakers, seminar leaders, InterVarsity staff, student delegates, exhibitors, missionaries, and pastors. When asked whether Urbana presents the real image and burden of missions, the vast majority of both pastors and missionaries responded positively.

Percentage of pastors and missionaries from Urbana who agreed with the statement:
"In my opinion, exposure to overseas missions as presented at Urbana consistently presents the real image and burden of missions."

Urbana 87:
88% of pastors
77% of missionaries

Urbana 90:
80% of pastors
92% of missionaries

Urbana 93:
84% of pastors
78% of missionaries

From those in the leadership of the church and the mission community, this is high praise for the effectiveness of Urbana in presenting missions to its delegates. As another strong endorsement from church leadership, John Piper has stated that "The last three Urbanas have changed the life of our church."

At each Urbana delegates are given the opportunity to respond with their material gifts during the convention. We take an offering for world hunger, we donate the cost of skipped lunches on one afternoon to hunger relief organizations, and delegates are able to give money for the work of God among students around the world. In each of these opportunities, Urbana communicates our responsibility to be stewards of all of the resources God has given to us and to give freely to meet the needs of others. Over the past six Urbana conventions, a total of $854,725 has been raised for hunger relief and $1,506,441 has been raised to support student work around the world through the ministry of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. Through this financial giving Urbana delegates have had a significant impact on the world even during the convention.

Urbana has always been committed to representing the diversity of the church within North America and the diversity of the church worldwide. As we have intentionally worked toward recruiting delegates of non-white ethnicity, the delegate pool of Urbana has diversified. Almost 40% of the student delegates at Urbana 93 were non-white. Thus each Urbana has challenged more of the church in North America to commitment to world missions.

Does Urbana "work"? The stories we hear from Urbana delegates through the years and the numerical data that we collect after each convention all tell us that it does. But the true testimony of the effectiveness of the Urbana Student Mission Convention will be in the presence of our Lord Jesus as we assemble with the souls whose destinies were eternally changed due to an Urbana convention and the faithfulness of the delegates over the past 50 years.

In a letter immediately following the first convention in Toronto in 1946, Stacey Woods, General Secretary of IVCF, wrote:
We are praying that this convention might be just the beginning of a mighty missionary movement on the part of thousands of Christian students throughout North America.

God has honored himself through Urbana for more than fifty years and we pray he will continue to do so in the future.

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