InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA is kicking off its triennial missions conference by inviting thousands of students to talk about missions, faith, and sharing the gospel.
Urbana 22 is celebrating its 26th anniversary and this year’s event will feature international speakers and musicians with the goal of having the students experience worshipping a “global God.”
“The goal is not to have a Westerner up there saying, ‘Go,'” Greg Joa, chief communications officer for InterVarsity, told Religion News Service. “It’s actually to have the global church say, ‘We welcome you. Come.'”
The evangelical campus ministry is expecting 6,000 students to be in attendance during the event which is being held Dec. 28-31 in Indianapolis — a few thousand short since the last event in 2018.
“COVID has had an effect in the sense that people aren’t sure if they want to gather with large groups of strangers. Some also just think, ‘I want to be home for Christmas,'” Joa explained.
Urbana began in 1946 and has grown to become one of the largest student missions conferences in the world. It aims to challenge young Christians to think about their responsibility and privilege to participate in global missions.
Past conferences have included evangelical legends such as Billy Graham, Elisabeth Elliot, Francis Schaeffer, Rick Warren, and John Stott as speakers, RNS reports.
Joa explains that the goal of this year’s conference is to ultimately draw students back to joining one of InterVarsity’s 700 chapters after the COVID-19 pandemic.
As CBN News has reported, InterVarsity began with a movement of students at the University of Cambridge, England in 1877. The students consistently met to pray, study the Bible, and share their faith with students. As more groups began to form across other college campuses, they began a coalition called “British Inter-Varsity.”
In 1938, college students in the U.S. were looking to bring the program to local college campuses.
According to their website, they serve more than 40,000 students and faculty on approximately 700 campuses nationwide.
“We believe God’s bringing a group of core college students who need to hear his invitation,” Joa said. “Inviting people to God’s global mission has been part of our history from the very beginning, and we’re going to keep doing it.”
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