Urbana consisted of three main components:
1. Morning Bible studies.
2. Large group sessions in the morning and night.
3. Seminars in the afternoon.
1. The Bible studies were great. A facilitator managed a room of between 1-200 people and directed the group through what is called an inclusive study. I believe this is common practice throughout intervarsity groups. The format looked like this:
- Begin with a song and prayer to direct the study to knowing more of God.
- Select a passage to study.
- Have someone read over the passage out loud to the group.
- Read over the text once more individually.
- With a notebook, read over the passage once more and take note of observations like numbers, names, repetition, anything that stands out. Limit observations to within the text.
- Discuss your observations within a group of 3.
- Read over the text and write down any questions that come to mind.
- Compile questions within your group. Which questions stick out to you?
- Decide which question gets most closely to the core of the passage.
- Read over once more and attempt to answer questions only referring to the text at hand.
I found this method beneficial as it forces a very close and critical look at the text itself and allows time to notice and make connections which may be easily overlooked Ina short time.
2. Large group sessions are meeting with all 16,000 in attendants. These were conflicting for me. Lots of very emotional and striking testimonies were shared and questions to the effect of, "if you will not go, who will? You are the most educated, most supplied, most blessed..."
Don't quote me on that. What I found conflicting is the feeling of being motivated to go serve by emotional obligation or a general call rather than who God is and what He did. The truth of who God is does all the speaking we need.
He gave it all for us, and showed us who we really are, that we are made to be his perfect sons. That truth, the identity as sons living with all the fullness of God within us! That is what we go forward in, drawing from truth that is not exhaustible. Maybe it's the same and I'm missing it, but here's where my thoughts led to. ***More thoughts below
3. The seminars offered in the afternoons were good. There must have been over two hundred different seminars to nail down into 6-8 possible available time slots. "Lord, what session do you want me to go to.." : X
I went to a session by Mark Scandrette called practicing the way of Jesus. It was really good, he has a book. That one stood out to me the most.
***So here's where I live, what I'm thinking when I say this about who God is and what he did. Even if you don't believe in God, suspend your disbelief with me for a second...
God made everything, He's perfect, pure, good, love. We are the pinnacle of his good creation, we are made to be like God in both nature and personality, image and likeness. We hang out with God and it's awesome, perfect, unity, every day, it's what we we are created for. We mess up. We believe the devil and we mess up and we can't live in awesome, perfect, unity with God anymore. We sin, sin = doing something we're not made for, it produces no good things and will never fulfill us.
God doesn't like that, he wants us, he does not settle for separation, he comes as man and he fixes it. He pays the price for all our disobedience, ever. He fixes it, to be with us, and He did it for free cause He loves us. He made it as if we never sinned, justified. He returned us to the value we were created with, as sons and daughters, redeemed.
Now, so me and God are back to awesome, perfect, unity. Thank you Jesus, really. We get to know him, we get to be with him. With knowing him comes everything. Purpose, fullness, new identity, new heart, new life.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Urbana, as an event..
Urbana was quite an event.
I'm still not sure how I was able to go because we did not raise enough funds for everyone. Last check we had between $1-2000 raised of a needed $1800 per person. At any rate , God must have pushed someone to provide.
Upon arriving at the American Conference Center in downtown Saint Louis I could not help but notice the feeling of overwhelming excess. No doubt we are all here gathered in the name of Jesus. No doubt it says in Matthew:
Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them." (Matthew 18:19, 20 ESV)
In all likelihood with less conservative estimates people likely spend between 20 to 30 million dollars to attend this conference, and it happens every three years. For **calculations see below.
I truly did not intend for this post to be a bag on Urbana rant and that is not the goal here. The conference is a great effort to educate and motivate people of all generations toward missions. However, I do believe it to be completely unnecessary if people were truly, literally following Jesus and discipling young people to do likewise.
When asked by the disciples why He showed himself to them and not to the world He replies that those who love Him will obey his commands, that His and the Fathers love will rest on them. Furthermore,
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. (John 14:26 ESV)
So He tells them if you love me, you will show me to the world, my Father will even send a Helper to guide you, remind you of everything I said, that it is better that I go so the Holy Spirit can come! (John 16) The Spirit of the Lord fueled the ministry of Jesus and was all that was necessary in acting and speaking exactly as the Father would. (John 14:8..)
All that is necessary is to seek Him in the secret place, to know Him and to follow Him. To obey not out of obligation for that would be neither easy or light, but out of the love that can only come of knowing Him.
We don't need motivational speeches, we need a generation that seeks His face and recognizes the great adventure of life abundant which is knowing our Father, through our brother Jesus Christ.
What good all that money could do going toward organizations, communities and families around the world that could so desperately use it.
**16,000 to 18,000 people attended and paid at least $400 conference fee. People need hotel rooms, lets say one for every four people at a conservative $120/night for 5 nights turns out 4,000 rooms. I believe that's a conservative estimate as I believe the most people that shared a room in our group was 3 people. 16,000 X $400= $6,400,000 minimum for conference costs. Keep in mind I'm not a college student so the admission was $500. 4,000 X $600 = $2,400,000 as a conservative estimate for hotel fees. Right now we are at $8,800,000 with no airfare calculated in. Some people drove, I personally talked to several that did, so lets make a conservative airfare estimate to factor out the people that did drive. Lets say $300 round trip per person, I think it was closer to $5 or $600 for us. 16,000 X $300 = $4,800,000. So, the grand total very conservative estimate paid just by the people attending that goes toward putting on the conference or funding of the intervarsity organization is $13,600,000. Food was not calculated in meaning in all likelihood with less conservative estimates people likely spend between 20 to 30 million dollars to attend this conference, and it happens every three years.
I'm still not sure how I was able to go because we did not raise enough funds for everyone. Last check we had between $1-2000 raised of a needed $1800 per person. At any rate , God must have pushed someone to provide.
Upon arriving at the American Conference Center in downtown Saint Louis I could not help but notice the feeling of overwhelming excess. No doubt we are all here gathered in the name of Jesus. No doubt it says in Matthew:
Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them." (Matthew 18:19, 20 ESV)
In all likelihood with less conservative estimates people likely spend between 20 to 30 million dollars to attend this conference, and it happens every three years. For **calculations see below.
I truly did not intend for this post to be a bag on Urbana rant and that is not the goal here. The conference is a great effort to educate and motivate people of all generations toward missions. However, I do believe it to be completely unnecessary if people were truly, literally following Jesus and discipling young people to do likewise.
When asked by the disciples why He showed himself to them and not to the world He replies that those who love Him will obey his commands, that His and the Fathers love will rest on them. Furthermore,
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. (John 14:26 ESV)
So He tells them if you love me, you will show me to the world, my Father will even send a Helper to guide you, remind you of everything I said, that it is better that I go so the Holy Spirit can come! (John 16) The Spirit of the Lord fueled the ministry of Jesus and was all that was necessary in acting and speaking exactly as the Father would. (John 14:8..)
All that is necessary is to seek Him in the secret place, to know Him and to follow Him. To obey not out of obligation for that would be neither easy or light, but out of the love that can only come of knowing Him.
We don't need motivational speeches, we need a generation that seeks His face and recognizes the great adventure of life abundant which is knowing our Father, through our brother Jesus Christ.
What good all that money could do going toward organizations, communities and families around the world that could so desperately use it.
**16,000 to 18,000 people attended and paid at least $400 conference fee. People need hotel rooms, lets say one for every four people at a conservative $120/night for 5 nights turns out 4,000 rooms. I believe that's a conservative estimate as I believe the most people that shared a room in our group was 3 people. 16,000 X $400= $6,400,000 minimum for conference costs. Keep in mind I'm not a college student so the admission was $500. 4,000 X $600 = $2,400,000 as a conservative estimate for hotel fees. Right now we are at $8,800,000 with no airfare calculated in. Some people drove, I personally talked to several that did, so lets make a conservative airfare estimate to factor out the people that did drive. Lets say $300 round trip per person, I think it was closer to $5 or $600 for us. 16,000 X $300 = $4,800,000. So, the grand total very conservative estimate paid just by the people attending that goes toward putting on the conference or funding of the intervarsity organization is $13,600,000. Food was not calculated in meaning in all likelihood with less conservative estimates people likely spend between 20 to 30 million dollars to attend this conference, and it happens every three years.
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