Urbana 06 in Context

What Is Urbana 06?

Urbana 06 is InterVarsity’s twenty-first student missions convention. Urbana is held triennially and is an expression of InterVarsity’s purpose to transform students and develop world changers. Urbana 06 will take place December 27-31, 2006, in St. Louis, Missouri.

What Needs Does Urbana Address?

Human beings are created in the image of God and have a fundamental need to be in a relationship with their Creator. Urbana motivates young men and women to announce and demonstrate God’s reconciling love in the whole world.

University students are at a critical decision-making point in their lives. Their decisions today will influence the future of the world. Urbana shapes the nature of their influence by bringing students together with experts in global ministries and representatives from churches, mission agencies, and Christian educational institutions.

What Are Urbana’s Objectives?

For generations Urbana has sought to accomplish four objectives:

1. Declare God’s character and mission as revealed in Scripture (missio Dei).
2. Inform participants about the current realities in global missions.
3. Call all participants to join God’s mission.
4. Motivate participants to serve in global and crosscultural missions.

We use the word “mission” to describe the process by which God is redeeming his creation. One day this process will be finished. The word “missions” describes human efforts aimed at bringing the message of reconciliation between God and people.

What Is Urbana’s History?

Since 1946, Urbana conventions have been held every three years. Over 220,000 students have heard speakers, including Billy Graham and John Stott, proclaim God’s mandate to share the gospel worldwide.

Although the world has changed since the first Urbana convention, the mission of InterVarsity and Urbana has remained the same: To cultivate in every student generation a love for God and for his purposes in the world.

Urbana began quietly, although with much vision and purpose, with 575 students gathering in Toronto in 1946. The next convention was held in 1948 at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and drew almost 1,300 people. Attendance continued to increase steadily until the convention hall was filled to capacity in the 1990s. Since then attendance has remained around 20,000 participants, the maximum capacity of those facilities. Moving to St. Louis will allow more participants to attend Urbana 06.

Who Participates in Urbana?

Urbana is designed for university-educated Christians between the ages of 18 and 30, but we welcome people of any age interested in missions. Many who attend Urbana are undergraduate students, graduate students, and recent alumni from universities and colleges all over North America. We believe students and recent graduates who make commitments to missions have the potential to affect world realities for the next 50 years.

Urbana has a number of partners that participate in and benefit from the convention:

• Mission agencies and Christian educational institutions.
• Cultural and ethnic groups who together reflect the reality of God’s kingdom.
• Parents and pastors of participants who find Urbana a source of information and influence, as they seek to guide men and women making choices in obedience to God.
• Student leaders from around the world who translate the Urbana objectives into their own national and cultural contexts.

What Is the Urbana 06 Program?

The Urbana 06 program combines a variety of elements from large events to one-on-one interactions. The program will run from the evening of December 27 through midnight December 31, 2006. The daily schedule will include:

• Inductive Bible study
• Bible teaching and worship in the morning general sessions
• Seminars and special meetings on a range of missions-related topics
• Exhibit hall featuring the single largest gathering of North American mission agency representatives
• Evening general sessions that focus on global realities
• Small group interaction and prayer

What Global Realities Will Urbana 06 Address?

1. The Global Church
   The majority of Christians now live in the Southern hemisphere. The missions paradigm in which North American and European missionaries minister to non-Westerners is being replaced by a new reality in which Latin American, Asian, and African missionaries are ministering cross-culturally. No longer “from the West to the rest,” now the global movement of the gospel is from everyone to everywhere. These realities call for North American missionaries to be ready and willing to co-labor with and in many cases submit to the leadership of experienced nationals and non-Western missionaries. Urbana 06 will inform participants about the current realities of belonging to such a global and diverse body of Christ and motivate them to take their place in that body.
2. The City
   With our move to the city of St. Louis, it is opportune that Urbana 06 address urban ministry issues. By the year 2030, 61% of the world’s population will reside in urban areas, and the urban population of less developed regions of the world will have grown by 1.7 billion people. The issues created by globalization and urbanization have profound implications for the ways in which we participate in cross-cultural missions around the world.
3. The HIV/AIDS Pandemic
   One of the hallmarks of Christian witness throughout history is the care of the sick and dispossessed. Today the HIV/AIDS pandemic confronts missionaries at all levels of ministry in countries throughout the world. The HIV/AIDS Track at Urbana 06 will highlight the global reality of the pandemic and how it intersects with missions. Experts on the pandemic will highlight the crisis at the individual, societal and global levels, the Christian ethic which compels the church to respond, and practical ways people can make a difference in their communities and abroad.
4. Business as Mission
   Over the last couple of decades, Christian business people have discovered strategic ways to join God in his reconciling work in the world. We live in an increasingly interconnected world, where globalization has opened doors that have long been closed to traditional missions. At Urbana 06 we will mobilize a significant number of participants who, as business leaders, are uniquely trained and positioned to spread the gospel in the least evangelized and restricted-access nations. We want to call and motivate these women and men, who might not see how their career paths and missio Dei overlap, to live as kingdom agents around the world. Find out more about this track.
   

What Role Will Bible Study Have at Urbana 06?

The book of Ephesians is the Scripture text for Urbana 06. The morning Bible studies and plenary exposition will give participants the opportunity to see God’s declaration of his character and mission. At Urbana 06 we will use the lens of Ephesians to look at current world realities in light of God’s ultimate reality. In order to bring students face to face with the power of God’s Word, we have developed a new Bible study program for Urbana 06 that will lead them through five days of training in inductive study of Ephesians. The skills imparted during this training will benefit participants throughout their lives, wherever they end up serving.

What Are Some of Urbana’s Values?

1. Diversity of Cultural Input, Expression and Involvement
   For more than half a century Urbana has been pursuing ethnic and cultural diversity in its program and participants with a two-fold purpose: to call all North American ethnic groups to God’s mission, and to give participants a small experience of what it means to be cross-cultural.
2. Long Tradition of Multi-Organizational Involvement
   While InterVarsity has always sponsored Urbana, the event has always involved other organizations. More than 275 different organizations contributed their ideas and presented ministry opportunities at the last Urbana. This level of cooperation with mission agencies, schools and churches is one distinctive of Urbana.
3. The Practical Nature of the Urbana Convention
   Urbana has always been a highly personal and practical experience for participants, even though it has grown to be a 20,000-person event. Participants are called to personally account for their time and resources, given an immediate opportunity to take action through giving in the offering, and provided with unparallel access to mission agency representatives throughout the convention. Many agencies and seminaries, seeking students who are serious about God’s calling on their lives, regard Urbana as prime recruiting ground.

What Does Urbana Offer to Christian Groups?

“As a pastor to students, I have used Urbana as a tool to motivate, equip, and send students. Urbana has put me in an atmosphere of “global” proportions. Urbana has challenged me personally to see the world as God sees it, and it has convicted me to focus our youth ministries on the global mission.”

-Tim (Urbana 2000 Participant)

For pastors, teachers and other Christian leaders seeking to help people grow, Urbana offers a quality experience that imparts a vision for global mission and enables participants to have face-to-face contact with mission leaders and agency representatives.

Why Should Someone Attend Urbana 06?

“At Urbana 84 the world suddenly opened up for me. I heard about what God was doing all over the world, including in cities. I was cut to the heart and felt very strongly God’s Holy Spirit calling me. I look back at Urbana with gratefulness because I wonder if I would be serving overseas today if it hadn’t been for the challenge that Urbana provided.”

-Mary Ellen (Urbana 84 Participant)

Urbana offers a multiplicity of experiences and opportunities under one roof. Participants hear the word of God, learn about the current state of global missions, worship and study with thousands in a diverse gathering of world Christians, and interact with hundreds of different missionaries and agency representatives. Anyone who is serious about discovering their place in God’s mission will benefit from Urbana 06’s program and the abundant resources present.

Why Should a Mission Agency Choose to Exhibit at Urbana?

“I am always amazed at how many of our finest candidates indicate that important decisions to follow Christ in mission were made at Urbana. This happens year after year. No other contemporary event has more highly contributed to the evangelization of East Asia.”

-David Dougherty (Overseas Missionary Fellowship)

Mission agencies are a vital part of the Urbana experience for participants. Thousands of students, recent graduates, pastors and others come to Urbana looking for God’s leading for their lives, and they look forward to the chance to interact with mission agency representatives. In addition, each agency that exhibits at Urbana is listed in the exhibitor handbook that is available at the convention, as well as the interactive mission/missionary matching service of MSearch on www.urbana.org. We hear from many mission agencies that many of their best recruits are contacts from Urbana.

How Is Urbana 06 Organized & Administered?

Urbana is planned, organized, and administered by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA. Urbana 06 is cohosted by Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship of Canada and Les Groupes Bibliques Universitaires et Collégiaux du Canada. The input of IFES and other ministry organizations is critical to the success of Urbana.

The Urbana 06 Leadership Team Is:

• Jim Tebbe
  Director of Urbana
  Vice President of Missions for InterVarsity
• Christy Chappell
  Urbana Communications Director
• Ericka Collins
  Administrative Coordinator
• Matthew Philip
  Director of Operations
• Roy Stephen
  Director of Urbana.org and Urbana 06 Exhibits
• Scott Wilson
  InterVarsity Communications Director

Contact Information

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA
tel 608.274.7995
email info@urbana.org
web www.intervarsity.org
www.urbana.org

Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship of Canada
tel 800.668.9766
email urbana.info@ivcf.ca
web www.ivcf.ca

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