The State of Christianity from Urbana 09 on Vimeo.
Hello and Happy New Year! 2010 is upon us and I am proud to say I have yet to accidentally write "09" in my journal, though "2010" still looks very futuristic to me. I feel like we should have flying cars and meals in pill form if we are going to be living in 2010. But, I digress. January is here and with it will come the new semester starting up next Monday. However, the biggest news around these parts is that Urbana 2009 has come and gone. Urbana is the missions conference for North American students hosted by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA and Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship of Canada. It is held every three years. This was the 22nd Urbana and the second one to be held at the Edward Jones Dome here in the friendly city of Saint Louis. Nearly 17,000 students descended on downtown Saint Louis from December 27-31st, flooding the streets, sleeping in hotels, severely inflating the late-December income of restauranteurs, and learning about God's heart for the world and His call on their lives.
Your Part In God's Mission: Jim Tebbe from Urbana 09 on Vimeo.
The theme of the week was the "He Dwelled Among Us" and we primarily focused on the first four chapters of the Gospel of John. Each day would begin (as each day should) with Bible study. 250-1000 students gathered in each of 49 large meeting rooms in various hotels and convention centers downtown to study John together. After an hour and a half of what InterVarsity calls "inductive" or "manuscript" Bible study (the best method I have ever seen for studying the Bible in large groups), the students would return to the Edward Jones Dome for the morning session. These main sessions (morning and evening) included incredible and diverse worship, beautiful media and drama presentations, and powerful speakers. The afternoons consisted of optional seminars (40+ to choose from each day) on a wide variety of topics centering around taking the love of Jesus into difficult places on our campuses, in our cities, and around the world. If this wasn't enough content, there is also a gigantic book and resource store (courtesy of InterVarsity Press) and an overwhelming missions exhibition hall, filled with displays and volunteers from over 300 missions agencies, ready to help students process and discern what God's call might be on their lives. Thousands of students committed or re-committed their lives to Jesus. Thousands of students agreed to lead an evangelistic Bible study of John 1-4 for some of their friends who don't know Jesus. Thousands of students committed to at least short-term mission work around the world, hundreds of which committed to living among the poor and marginalized around the world long-term. The energy was amazing.
Suffice it to say, Urbana is an intense week for staff and students. But it is one of the most incredible experiences I have ever had. In 2006, God used Urbana to show me for the first time how BIG His Kingdom is. I worshiped in other languages for the first time. I spoke with missionaries who felt called to Native American tribes, fraternity students, impoverished people in Africa, and everything in between. I learned about racial reconciliation. I heard about Global Urban Treks for the first time and then found myself in the middle of a slum in Cairo less than two years later. It was a significant moment in my journey with Jesus and I was thrilled to have around 10 students from SLU experiencing it last week. I cannot wait to see how the Spirit uses Urbana to open their hearts to the poor and marginalized in our city, the broken hearts on our campus, and to our own need for Jesus to come and dwell among us at SLU.
Bringing the Kingdom of God down to Earth: Shane Claiborne from Urbana 09 on Vimeo.
While our 10 students were enjoying mixing in with the Urbana throng, I (along with all the other IV Staff) had a couple of jobs to attend to during the week. My primary Urbana job consisted of supervising all of the technical aspects of the morning Bible studies. Imagine this scenario: 49 large meeting rooms scattered all over downtown, each with a projector, several microphones, and a soundboard. In each room, one person I have never met is running a PowerPoint presentation through the projector while 4-7 microphone runners gather observations, questions, and analysis in the book of John from the 250-1000 students present. One teacher leads each room. If anything goes wrong with any of the equipment in any of those rooms, my phone vibrates with a frantic teacher or assistant on the other end. Sound stressful? Let me tell you - God was exceedingly gracious in keeping technical issues to a minimum at Urbana 09. For this, I am extremely grateful. In the evenings, I was an on-call driver assigned to help cart volunteers and speakers from their hotels to the Dome and back. This job was much less stressful, albeit the 1/2 zoo, 1/2 maze that is the one-way street laden downtown of Saint Louis. I had a blast meeting staff and students from all over the country, catching up with old friends who were in town, and hearing the fantastic stories from my students about their experiences at the event. Then, I crashed and spent the weekend recovering. Understandable, right?
Now that Urbana is over, my staff partner and I will be getting together this week to pray and continue discerning the next steps for SLU in the coming semester. We have a gameplan in mind but I can't wait to see how God shakes us up and leads us to go and dwell in those dark and unreached places on our campus. I am so thankful to have you along for the ride and I am excited to share the stories with you as we go. Peace to you in this new year!
