The Urbana 06 online registration process worked smoothly over the weekend of October 14 and 15 as thousands of people signed up to beat an early registration deadline. Just days ago Urbana 06 registrations passed the halfway mark, heading towards the goal of 25,000. By the time the October 15th deadline had passed registrations exceeded 17,000.
InterVarsity’s Urbana 06 Student Missions Convention will be held December 27-31 at the Edward Jones Dome and the America’s Center in St. Louis.
“Hundreds of thousands of people have been influenced in powerful ways by Urbana,” said InterVarsity Missions director Jim Tebbe, as he offered reflections on past Urbanas and an Urbana update to staff at the National Service Center during the weekly chapel service just four days before the deadline.
He read a letter from a woman who had received an Urbana scholarship while a student at Oswego State University in 1951. She wrote that her prayer leader the first night after she arrived was Corrie Ten Boom, “who inspired us all to consider going wherever God calls us.”
A scholarship fund was established for Urbana 06 about a year and a half ago and is nearing its $750,000 goal. Jim read a note from a past Urbana attendee who had donated $2,400 to the scholarship fund. Information about the fund had reached the donor just as they were considering how to dispose of money that had to go to an existing non-profit organization.
“That has happened hundreds of times,” he said. “We had no idea what the response would be when we set up the fund. We know God’s been faithful in the past and that he will be faithful in this Urbana. The greatest confidence we have in the future is to look at what God has done in the past.”
Jim said that this Urbana is about finding out what God has for the future. “We’re at a crossroads in missions,” he said. “The church in the south is growing rapidly, society is changing dramatically. The ways that mission societies are working are also changing dramatically.”
InterVarsity believes that God speaks through the Bible. So Bible study will be emphasized at Urbana, particularly study of the Letter to the Ephesians. Many staff are already studying and memorizing Ephesians. “Ephesians is influencing InterVarsity,” he said.
He has two goals for Scripture study at Urbana. He wants attendees to be able to say:
- 1) I learned Ephesians and this is what it taught me about God’s mission.
- 2) I have a desire to study the Bible more in this way with others.
An offering will be taken during one of the Urbana services for overseas ministry to college students. Some of that offering will go to help organizers of similar missions conventions around the world. At least 21 other missions conventions are being planned in other countries between this Urbana in 2006 and the next Urbana in 2009.
The influence and impact of Urbana goes far beyond the 220,000 who have attended over the past 60 years.
____
Jim Tebbe’s chapel talk is this week’s InterVarsity podcast. To access the audio or sign up for the podcast, go to our audio page.
