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Over 20,000 students, missionaries, and pastors from 117 countries attended the Urbana 2000 Student Missions Convention, December 27-31, where speakers drove home God’s fundamental call for love and worship.

“I believe God has given this generation a gift of worship,” said Barney Ford, Urbana 2000 director. “It’s where God meets them. They feel connected to God’s love. We want to help them understand God has given them this gift.”

The theme of Urbana 2000 was “Loving the nations because God first loved us.” This year marked the 19th triennial event sponsored by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, Inter-Varsity Canada, and Groupes Bibliques Universi-taires et Collegiaux du Canada. It had originally been scheduled to be held a year earlier but was postponed because of concerns related to Y2K. The five-day convention focused on giving each student a heart of worship.

“When we worship, we come into God’s presence,” Ford said. “God tells us the truth about ourselves and we repent of our sin.”

Alex Gee, pastor of Fountain of Life Church and president of the Nehemiah Community Development Corporation, believes that worship is a way of life.

“Worship is a continual response to God,” Gee said. “Worship is everything I do. It’s how I interact with the world. In the context of actual worship, there’s a safe place that’s created.”

“The worship experience has been unbelievable,” said Melvin George, a University of Alberta student. “It’s like I’ve got a new set of eyes. I see Jesus in everyone and everything.” His friend and fellow student, Alan Varughese, agrees. “Through Urbana, I’ve learned more about worship,” Varu-ghese said. “I’ve learned that it means giving everything to God.”

In addition to worship and teaching, Urbana 2000 provided 300 different seminars, small-group and prayer time, and approximately 320 exhibitors representing missions agencies, schools, and seminaries.

“I’m trying to learn what God wants me to do,” Varughese said. “The seminars and speakers have been awesome. It’s exactly what I expected.”

Urbana has four main objectives. The first and foremost is to declare the biblical basis of missions. The convention was held first in 1946 in Toronto. Then the conference was moved to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where it has been held ever since.

Second, Urbana presents the current state of global missions and, third, presents a clear call for students to respond. Fourth, all these objectives are to be accomplished in a university culture. As part of presenting the current state of the world, presenters highlighted various social injustices.

Gee talked about racial reconciliation. “Students are grasping what’s being said here because we’re not beating them over the head,” Gee said. “We stand and invite the spirit of reconciliation. Our approach is much more relational. We trust in the Holy Spirit. We want to work so there’s not an us and them.”

Speakers highlighted institutional problems in society and the current apathy of the church. “We’re seeing brokenness everywhere,” Gee said. “The delegation can relate to the pain of this generation. And this generation is wired to feel the pain of someone else.” The diversity of the speakers paralleled the diversity of the students attending. Almost 40 percent of the delegates were of Asian-American, African-American, or Hispanic descent.

“The diversity at this convention sends the message that the kingdom of God is multiethnic and beautiful,” Gee said. Vinoth Ramachandra, regional secretary for South Asia for the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, says world missions agencies need to exhibit more diversity.

“The leadership in missions agencies is drawn from white, Western America,” he said. “It doesn’t reflect the state of the world church. And when someone from Africa or South America does make it to a leadership position, they’ve been groomed in the West. They follow the Western agenda.”

Ramachandra expressed dismay at the apparent competition between agencies. “They are all competing for the same resources,” Ramachandra said. “They are going to the same communities for financial help. If they combined resources, more could be done.”

The same goes for Bible colleges and theological seminaries, he said. “In this day and age, we shouldn’t be standing rigid in our own denominations. The structure of missions has become very individualistic,” says Ramachandra. “If a person has a burden, they want to start their own organization instead of investigating the current work being done.”

Ramachandra, a Sri Lankan, noted that missions are not just cross-cultural and are not just about preaching and evangelism. He says students should learn from the global church. “Your mission begins right where you’re at. You don’t have to go to a foreign country to do missions,” he said. “If the students can see whatever they are doing right now is also part of God’s mission, this conference is worthwhile.”

“I can’t imagine anyone leaving here and thinking about injustice and reconciliation in the same way,” Gee said. To date over 200,000 students have attended Urbana conventions. The next is scheduled for December, 2003.

“God gave us himself and when he did that, he gave us the mission he’s on,” Ford said. “God’s story holds our stories. God has given us his family business. He’s on a mission to love the world. And we are all a part of what he is doing.”

Autumn Flutur is the editorial resident for Campus Life magazine, Carol Stream, Ill.