From December 27 through 31 I will have the privilege of attending Urbana ’09 in St. Louis. Urbana is the Intervarsity International Missions Conference held every three years. It is just about the single most important event of its kind in the realm of global missions. If you want a picture of what these five days will are like, watch this brief video.
Our team of six from OGC who are headed that way in a few weeks recently met together for dinner. We talked about our motives for attending. Other than never attending one of these before and not wanting to miss the experience, mine are simple. I believe God shows up uniquely in these kind of venues and I am eager to hear what He will say to me. Furthermore, I want Him to enlarge my heart for the cause of global missions so I can be a better sending pastor. And finally, I want to know better the hopes and dreams of these dear ones pictured below who are going as well
From left to right that’s Bethany, Ashely, Carissa, Julia, me, & Danny. Each one has his or her own desires and dreams related to giving up a portion of their winter break to attend Urbana. I am excited to see what God will do in each of their lives.
The cost of travel, lodging, and conference fees total about $950 each. The mission committee will partially subsidize their expenses, and all are committing some of their own personal funds to the trip, but every one of them could use a little extra help with their finances.
If you feel led to help support our team with an extra gift this Sunday or next, please mark your memo line of your check for “Urbana” and we will see that it gets divided up among the members. Thanks so much!
curtheffelfinger.com 
I echo the title of the post, and am so glad that you’re Urbana-bound, as well as the other five. I attended Urbana 93 and 2000, and Abby attended 96 and 2000. Our stewardship of the OGC Mission Committee for many years was essentially qualified by this conference, and what it showed us about the dominant themes and strategies and methods in global missions.
One of those themes was the unreached, and over the years we’ve tried pretty hard to raise the flag not for people who haven’t heard the gospel, but more urgently for those whose culture doesn’t even provide the opportunity to hear it. One of those strategies was involving indigenous people in finish-able task of translating the Bible into every spoken language.
When you look at our website home page and scroll through the series of images representing our PRIORITIES, behind the “O” which stands for “Outreach to the lost” there is a photograph of a very happy day, when Digo believers celebrated a New Testament in their heart language.
Looking back on it, it’s very easy for me to draw a line connecting the kind of world-changing church we’ve become and this conference held every 3 years. Urbana is frequently the origin of world-changing people.
It is a rock-solid investment for the mission committee to send our people there.
As someone recently said to me after I left a comment on his blog, “That made my month!” Thanks, brother.