Lessons from Urbana

I came home from being away during the last week of 2009 itching to write a blog about what I’ve been learning. I didn’t spend that last week just anywhere. I was with 17,000 young adults at a conference called Urbana. If you’re unfamiliar, the campus ministry parachurch organization InterVarsity puts on a fabulous gathering once every three years with two aims in mind: young adults and missions. Naturally these are two of my passions, and I had attended this conference back when I was a student, eager to take in all that it had to offer. Now in my older years (ha!) I wondered if I’d leave the conference with the same zeal and energy I left it with 6 years ago. Urbana did not disappoint. Through a combination of the general sessions, bible teaching, break-out seminars, conversations with students, worship time, and even meals together I met with God’s Spirit in refreshing ways. I came away with some new thoughts for myself, and I wanted to share them with you all. In no particular order here they are:

The great tragedy isn’t that we don’t love the poor but that we don’t know the poor. –Shane Claiborne
I was pretty sure I’d read that statement by him somewhere before, but it struck me as just as powerful this time around. It can be very comfortable to give to charities and care about the disenfranchised when there’s no relationship alongside it. The challenge is to restructure our lives so that those with needs affect us and impact us in the exact way Paul’s metaphor of the Church as a body hoped it would. Our call wherever we are living is to build relationships with all types of people.

We romanticize the poor around the world and we demonize the poor on our doorstep in order to remain disengaged.
Along the same vein as the previous point, Christ’s incarnation implores us as his followers to get involved. We are to be an engaged people. This statement was a passing comment by a panelist at a seminar but I thought it was so accurate and challenging for Christians in the West.

Have the humility to say I have so much to learn.
This is such a valuable reminder at any stage in your life. Even as I write this, I’m thinking, man I have no idea what I’m talking about. May we continue to be a people known for grace, honest about our mistakes, and freely inviting others to teach us and correct us based on what they have learned about life with God from their community.

God in Scripture has consistently used outsiders to transform whole communities.
Think of examples like Joseph and Esther. This doesn’t always make sense economically but they bring new things to communities and return home and bring new things into the home community. There are those relocators, outsiders who can be prophetic voices and new perspectives. Those of us from the West have lost our confidence in our prophetic voices.

Prayer is spiritual defiance of what is into what will be. This is intercession. –Walter Wink
Prayer is the invitation to partner with God’s creative activity. Prayer is bringing the future into being, partnering with God as we pray “let your Kingdom come in my world and my life!”

Jesus chose voluntary poverty for mission. He gave up privilege to serve the world.
Not all of us are called to vows of poverty. I recognize that fully and I firmly believe God needs faithful Christians serving in humility and love everywhere. That being said, I had never thought before about Jesus as the model for downward mobility. He chose a life far below the means he could have lived at and he shed status to become the servant of all.

Even when it gets risky, stay.
I was reminded of the value of staying in the most dangerous places. The Church has the resource of martyrdom—we don’t have to fear death! What a powerful witness it becomes when Christians get in the way, and stay in the unsafe corners of the world. There is such relational value when Christians commit to communities for the long haul.

Christians with technology want to make the most number of Christians in the least amount of time.
A woman from Central America boldly proclaimed this words and so much truth was contained within them. It was a calling to patience and relationships over the long haul. Statistics often poorly represent what the Spirit of God is doing in a neighborhood. We are a culture that has become dependant on speed and efficiency to value effectiveness and this is often counter to the way that God’s Kingdom measures success.

Preaching Christ and doing justice go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other.
This sounds so simplistic, but to me this is the heart of mission. Organizations and ministries that only reflect one miss the whole heart of the good news for the world.

Jesus Christ was an Asian immigrant in Africa.
Immigrants are one of the greatest areas of growth in the United States numerically in recent years. Our churches need to emphasize this and create hospitable space for all people to feel welcome. We often take on the attitude that it is ok for those of us western Christians to go to the ‘other’ elsewhere in the world but we respond differently when others around the world come to us. Sometimes missional living involves making those around us from a different home country feel welcomed here into our lives and our places of worship.

In a culture of celebrity, live to be forgotten.
For me this was probably the most powerful message from Urbana. It was proclaimed with conviction by a Chinese leader and later echoed by almost every speaker following. As Christians we don’t seek fame and fortune, success and notoriety, but instead we seek lives of quiet humility following in the way of the cross. This is our calling and I can’t think of any other worth giving my life to.

I hope you’ve had experiences where you were able to gather with a community of believers, many with backgrounds different than your own, and experience the Spirit of God in fresh ways. May these thoughts encourage you as you live faithful lives for Christ in your neighborhood and intercede for God’s children around the globe.