With Urbana 06 registration now completely online, registration momentum is building at a pace faster than any Urbana Student Missions Convention in the last 20 years. Registration for housing has just opened at urbana.org which means for the first time students and other attendees can choose their accommodations.

Jim Tebbe, InterVarsity’s vice president of missions and director of Urbana, believes that another reason for the early interest in Urbana 06 is the current student generation’s concern for justice and making the world a better place.

Jim says that concern fits well within the four objectives of Urbana 06, which are:

• Declaring God’s character and mission as revealed in Scripture
• Informing participants about the current realities of global missions
• Calling participants to join God’s mission
• Motivating participants to serve in global and cross-cultural missions

“We believe that God is doing something different than what he’s done in past student generations,” Jim said during a recent chapel service at InterVarsity’s National Service Center. Urbana 06 will present attendees with a very clear opportunity to respond.

“What we want to say is that every single person at Urbana is a part of God’s mission,” he said. “If you are a believer in Jesus Christ you are part of God’s mission. You can step up to it or not, that’s up to you, but you’re called to it and the whole world is your concern.”

The theme of Urbana 06 is You Have a Calling, which is taken from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (4:1). The six chapters of Ephesians will be the focus of in-depth study during Urbana, in the tradition of InterVarsity’s manuscript studies.

“We want to give Scripture to this generation and empower them to interpret it,” Jim said. “That’s why there’s a huge effort being put into manuscript study. We believe that Scripture will transform this generation.”

Jim Tebbe’s NSC chapel talk about Urbana is an InterVarsity podcast. You can listen to it at: http://media.intervarsity.org/mp3/JimTebbe1.mp3. You can also add the InterVarsity podcast to your downloads at: http://www.intervarsity.org/audio/podcast.php.