At a recent Verge Conference, I spoke to thousands of church leaders about “Why Leadership Isn’t Sexy” and the importance of this North American generation being willing to engage in discomfort rather than comfort.
There’s so much to be thankful for as I reflect on the Urbana 12 Student Missions Conference. I’m so proud of my team and the 1,500+ InterVarsity staff across North America, who rallied together around a vision for this Urbana to be clearly connected to its historical vision, clearly rooted in Scripture & the Gospel, and clearly contextualized to the language & culture of this generation.
Many robust reports, articles, videos, and stories will undoubtedly be circulated in the coming months, but for now, I’d like to share 10 PERSONAL highlights from Urbana 12 (in no particular order):
A TASTE OF URBANA 12: All of the Urbana general session talks and performing arts sketches are now available on this page for free viewing! In addition to strong biblical exposition by Calisto Odede, I was moved to tears by powerful artistic sketches like The Deep and Prodigalia. Keep in mind that these videos only represent a small portion of Urbana 12, as the morning Bible studies in Luke and afternoon programming provided significant foundations and follow-up to the general sessions. Please share with your friends, as we’d like Urbana to bless as many as possible!
How can we take Urbana’s best learning and share with a wider audience about the lifelong journey of missions? Together with my colleague Nikki Toyama-Szeto, we worked with some outstanding authors and co-edited 6 mini-books, just published and now FOR SALE. Titles include Deepening the Soul for Justice, The Mission of Worship, Partnering with the Global Church, Spiritual Warfare in Mission, Your Mind’s Mission, and Pursuing God’s Call.
Leaders need to pay attention to deep trends that are shaping society and its institutions. Gregory and Nathan Jones do a great job of describing seven deep trends and how to cultivate patterns of discernment, guided by the Holy Spirit, on adapting faithfully and creatively to them. Here are the seven:
- The digital revolution
- A multinodal world
- Reconfiguring denominations and emerging forms of congregating
- Questioning institutions
- Economic stress on Christian institutions
- Shifting vocations of laypeople
- The lure of cities
For our upcoming Urbana Student Missions Conference, I’m excited to have a host of global voices speaking to our 18,000 participants. One of the very few American speakers is David Platt, who my InterVarsity team interviewed this past year. I appreciate his heart, his passion, and his commitment to global missions, which came through as we spent 4 days together with our speakers’ community on retreat this past August. Read his interview online and hear why David is excited about Urbana 12!
From an interview I recently gave to the Billy Graham Center regarding challenges in the North American Church and the Global Church…
From a recent interview I did with Relevant’s Reject Apathy Magazine, exploring the changing context of global missions and the hope I have with this student generation’s engagement in God’s call to mission… Enjoy!
What is calling? How do you know the will of God? Something we’ll explore with more than 6,000 students at 12 select campuses across North America during our Urbana On Campus “tour.” We’re thankful for event partners like World Relief for challenging us to think through God’s purpose in our lives through video. Click to see a list of all of the campuses, starting with my alma mater!
Billy Graham and John Stott gathered top evangelical leaders from around the world in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1974 with the hope of reaching the whole world with the good news of Christ. Since then, The Lausanne Movement has hosted two additional global Congresses, one in 1989 and one in Cape Town in 2010. On July 24-26, I hosted a follow-up Lausanne Consultation for North American Younger Leaders for 130 influential leaders in their 20s and 30s to share vision and work together on 10 missions issues which came out of Cape Town.
As the co-chair of the Consultation, I was impressed with the new partnerships forged between the leaders. I was encouraged by the robust academic and practical discussion, resulting in a future book which I will serve as Editor on. Click here to hear AUDIO of the outstanding speakers!
