Imagine – learning from pastors and ministers who minister in diverse and different neighborhoods; worshipping in other languages, cultures, and styles; and attending seminars about ministries which reach nearly every niche of career, people group, or interest you can think of…all packed into five days. This is just a glimpse of the Urbana Student Missions Conference, and this past December, eighteen of us from Chinese Grace Bible Church (CGBC) attended Urbana in St. Louis, Missouri. Our group ranged from high school students to church leaders, from those who have been working in their careers for two years to those who have been working twenty.

Urbana is hosted every three years by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA and sister InterVarsity movements in Canada. It focuses its 16,000 attendees’ attention on God’s global church and our call to live out God’s kingdom wherever we are. Pastor Timothy Chan shares about the importance of this perspective. He says, “Urbana presents a bigger platform to refocus again on the mission of the global church…Local church ministry needs to be set in the context of God’s global movement: What is God doing all over the world? What is God’s heart to the lost?”

Urbana invites us to open our eyes to communities and perspectives we aren’t even aware of. Even the worship music is probably the most diverse you will experience in your life. The variety of styles and expressions may even be uncomfortable. This year, the worship team led songs taught to them by Christian political activists in Ferguson, Missouri; Polynesian students in Honolulu, Hawaii; the evangelical student movement in Tecate, Mexico; and worship leaders in Jordan and more. As we worshipped God in not only English, but also Chinese, Spanish, and Malayalam with believers from all over the world…I often wondered if this reflects just the tiniest glimpse of heaven where every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

But beyond the worship, this diverse, missional and evangelistic conference means that those attending Urbana are reminded that being part of a body of believers means paying attention to all parts of the body. This year, that meant focusing on believers facing extreme persecution, unreached Muslim communities, and the deep need for racial reconciliation in the United States. These topics are often uncomfortable or distant, and we may be tempted to think they are unrelated from our experience as believers in a Chinese church in Sacramento. Urbana challenged us to engage, to lean in, and to ask God what steps He wants us to take to be part of seeking His kingdom in this world.

Collin Ong shares, “At Urbana, I was overwhelmed by everything that God put together in one place: the multitudes and diversity of believers attending and sharing from their experiences around the world and at home.  It really showed me that God is doing so much more than the narrow viewpoint I see at home.  It was an honor to be invited into that mixture and to invest in it through prayer for persecuted nations and more.”

On the one hand, Urbana explicitly challenges attendees to ask if God is calling them to the mission field, and over two-thousand attendees this year committed to serving long-term. This is one of the hopes Pastor Tim has for CGBC members who attend Urbana — “that those who have had some short term experiences would explore how God may have prepared them for long-term missions.” Urbana brings together many seminars, organizations, and ministries to help attendees explore this option.

On the other hand, for those who feel called to other careers and ministry fields, a wealth of options allows participants to engage with others who are seeking God’s kingdom in areas you may not even think about: ministry to gamers, artists pursuing Christ, evangelism in your neighborhood, and medical missions are just a glimpse of niches presented through the exhibition hall or seminars offered. Joseph Lei participated in the first-ever Hack4Missions, a live hackathon where participants prototyped new ideas to create real-time solutions for missions organization while providing a vision and real experience of how those working in technology can use their skills for Kingdom impact. And Collin explored how believers in the business world were merging God’s Kingdom with their careers.

“I attended a seminar from a man who desired to be a missionary after college, but God closed those doors and led him into starting a technology firm instead,” he shares. “Now he runs this company with Kingdom principles and sends believers to offices in other countries where they work alongside local people and demonstrate how Christ makes them different. This has made me consider how my occupation can be more than just what I do for a living but how it can be an active extension of serving God.”

And so, here are a few things I love about Urbana. For one, people actively bringing the unchanging gospel into the reality of our world and the mission field now. Humbly learning how God is at work in communities we’ve ignored through methods and ministries we never considered. Trusting His grace and strength to send us where He calls us next. Choosing obedience as He calls us, whether it is overseas or local, to vocational ministry or industry here.

Please join us in praying that those of us who attended this year will continue to apply and live out what God was taught us, as well as for God to send more of us at CGBC into the mission field to make His name known. And consider attending the next Urbana, December 27-31, 2018.

“I urge anyone who desires to grow and mature a heart for God’s global mission to consider pursuing this trip,” Rosanne Yee encourages. “It is not often that so many resources, people, and events would be available at your fingertips to inspire, challenge, and prepare you for his work to be done.”

Watch sermons and worship songs, listen to seminars, read posts and more from Urbana at www.urbana.org.