Word: urbana
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Conferences such as Urbana Onward, one of over 100 follow-up meetings to Urbana, a convention held in December and attended by 16,500 students, are the best publicized, but not the only evidence of a snowballing movement that is drawing young Christians to missionary work. Successful campus student groups, such as the predominantly Protestant Harvard-Radcliffe Christian Fellowship (HRCF), also fuel this revived enthusiasm. The resurgence of the missionary committment is best supported by and most fervently related by students themselves...
However, debate exists over whether full time missionary work is required of every dedicated Christian. Rozzell pointed out that "it is not necessarrily plausible or desirable for everyone to pack up and go to Africa." But Dinah Danby '83 said participants who went to Urbana and did not emerge with a full-time committment "might have missed the point." Danby, who is studying Sanskrit, Hebrew, and Arabic, and plans to represent the church in India, added that, "As Christians, we have a responsibility to evangalize...Taking a conventional job is not going to go much towards that." Of the thirteen...
Jaymie Potts '83, Danby's roommate, said, "armchair missionary work" is effective and sufficient for many people, adding that she "gained insight at Urbana. I can do something at home with prayer and money." Potts works for "Evangalism in Communist Lands," an organization that sends sections of the Bible that are hidden between the pages of personal letters to Christians in the Soviet Union. Agreeing with Potts, Chris Smith '80, president of the HRCF, explained that God instructs every Christian to perform a specific role, although not necessarrily that of a missionary--an idea that several others also mentioned...
...country and internationally, coordinating the efforts of campus groups and mission boards. The International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, a worldwide operation, oversees such groups as the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF), which in turn is an umbrella organization for student-run college groups such as the 160-member HRCF. Urbana is Inter-Varsity's showpiece, an event that has become so popular that it will be held every two years beginning in December 1981, instead of every three, as it has been since the first small-scale gatherings in the early '40s. David Walker '83, another HRCF member who trekked...
While they are certainly big, and at times, loud and frantic, student missionary conferences are not for dilletantes. Beginning at 6:15 a.m., with half an hour of individual meditation--"quiet time" in Urbana lingo the participant hustles through several days of intensive bible study, speeches, workshops, slide shows and prayer groups, all centered on the basics of missionary work. Billy Graham, the well-known television evangelist, headlined the speakers line-up at Urbana. Famous missionaries from Argentina to Kenya joined Graham on the pulpit, exhorting the participants to consider church work as a career. "The whole thing can really...