With InterVarsity’s Urbana 06 Student Missions Convention now less than six months away, preparations for the triennial event are increasing in pace and intensity.
InterVarsity’s twenty-first Urbana Student Missions Convention will be held at the Edward Jones Dome at the America’s Center in St. Louis, Dec. 27-31, 2006. An expected 25,000 attendees will be challenged by speakers, workshop leaders, and mission agency representatives to make a personal commitment to respond to God’s call to bring hope and healing to a broken world. Online registration began in February and already almost 8000 people have registered for Urbana 06.
What’s New This Month
- More people are hearing about Urbana. Urbana 06 was represented at the annual Cornerstone Arts and Music Festival in Bushnell, Illinois, July 4-8. Urbana will be featured at a number of events over the next six months, including:
• ACMC Conference, (Advancing Churches in Missions Commitment) Santa Ana, CA, July 19-21
• Life Light Festival Sioux Falls, SD, September 1 – 3
- The Urbana 06 volunteer website is now online. InterVarsity is looking for 3,000 volunteers to help us make Urbana 06 run smoothly for all who come. Volunteer or get more information at http://www.urbana.org/go/volunteers.
- Urbana exhibitors can now also apply online. Urbana is the largest gathering of missions organizations in the world. More than 300 missions agencies and schools are expected to exhibit at Urbana 06.
- The Urbana 06 speakers retreat is this month in St. Louis. Plenary speakers, including Ajith Fernando, Ray Bakke and Brenda Salter McNeil, are meeting to confer and begin preparation for the messages they will bring to the 25,000 attendees who will be gathering in the Edward Jones Dome between Christmas and New Year’s.
Over the course of the 60-year history of Urbana conventions thousands of attendees have responded to the call to commitment by dedicating themselves to sacrificial Christian service. Three years ago at Urbana 03, 36 percent of the 19,000 attendees committed themselves to serve God in cross cultural missions.
