Missions Mobilization

This December 27 – 31, 2006, InterVarsity will sponsor its 21st Student Missions Convention, Urbana 06. As of mid-June, over 1,500 undergraduates from InterVarsity chapters who are committed to seeking their place in global missions have signed up to spend much of their Christmas break at Urbana 06.

Meanwhile, the Southern Baptist International Mission Board is sponsoring a missions mobilization tour of 40 cities beginning this September as part of the band Sonic Flood’s This Generation tour. The tour will feature testimonies of students in missions and is timed to coincide with the release of a missions-themed devotional book entitled “My Life, His Mission” that leads students through 6 weeks of teaching and reflection about their place and calling in global missions.

Another example of organized missions mobilization among students is the Student Volunteer Movement 2. SVM2 has picked up the task of serving existing missions groups on campuses, and facilitating the establishment of new groups that engage students in prayer for nations. This movement is in the tradition of the first Student Volunteer Movement that began in the 1880s and mobilized over 20,000 North American students into missions. SVM2’s goal is to facilitate prayer and teaching that leads to a new wave of 100,000 students who will commit at least two years of their lives to cross-cultural missions.

The values of our culture run counter to any movement that drives students to prayer, theological reflection and missions involvement, yet we in InterVarsity, along with our friends in other campus ministries, can testify that God is changing the hearts of many students. We joyfully point to the 2,000 students who committed their lives to Christ through the work of InterVarsity last year – the largest increase in conversions in 20 years. And, this summer over 700 InterVarsity students are in 28 countries serving cross-culturally on Global Projects and Global Urban Treks.

Please join us in thanking God for what he has done, and in praying that InterVarsity students at Urbana 06 will be joined by many more from churches, other campus ministries and Christian colleges throughout North America who are drawn to do whatever God calls them to do, and go wherever he calls them to go, for the sake of his name.