The Urbana 06 Student Missions Convention will begin in less than one month at The Americas Center and Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis. Registrations have passed the 20,000 level. Around the world thousands of attendees, many of them students, are making their final travel plans.

This will be InterVarsity’s 21st triennial Urbana convention. “We believe that God is doing something different than what he’s done in past student generations,” said Jim Tebbe, InterVarsity vice president for missions and director of Urbana, during a chapel service earlier this year at InterVarsity’s National Service Center. Urbana 06 will present attendees with a very clear opportunity to respond.

The four objectives of Urbana 06 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

The best resource for information on Urbana 06 is InterVarsity’s website www.urbana.org. Recent articles on urbana.org include information on Urbana 06 seminars and tracks, plus interviews with Urbana 06 plenary speakers such as Ray Bakke and Rick Warren. InterVarsity’s student website, StudentSoul.org, also has a good interview with Rick Warren.

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.”

As attendees finalize their registration, make their travel plans, pray for Urbana, and begin their review of Ephesians, we believe a transformation is already underway.