SCBC Urbana 06

Although Urbana 06 has ended and it will be another 3 years till the next Urbana Conference, the end of one thing is the start of another. It is the start of all the Urbana attendee’s making a difference for the Lord, living a life worthy of God’s calling, playing their part in God’s global missions.<

I was really stretched and challenged at Urbana. I went to the conference trying to seek God’s calling for me after graduation. I wanted to know how I could make an impact for Christ and “live a life worthy of the calling”. I came out of the conference changed, with a deeper understanding of God and how great God is.

During the course of Urbana, God showed me a glimpse of how to live a life that glorifies Him through the studying of Ephesians, quiet times, the worship sessions, the people I met, Bible studies, the different amazing speakers, and workshops that I attended. The biggest thing I learned from Urbana was the concept of unity. The idea of a universal church as a body was stressed as we were presented with issues across America and all over the world. When one part of the body hurts, the rest of the body should hurt as well, and when one part of the body rejoices, the rest rejoices as well. Often times, AIDS, inner-city problems, poverty and sickness in Third World countries seem so distant to us that we could care less about all the problems around the world. In the past, I used to think that as long as the issue doesn’t affect me directly, it doesn’t matter. However, this selfish and limited view was totally changed at Urbana as one speaker talked about one identity in the global church. As Christians, we are all worshipping one God, and thus, have only one identity- God’s children.

Having this mindset changes my perspective on how I view issues and how I treat the people around me. No longer are global issues just another war or just another natural disaster, but it is something that is affecting my brothers and sisters, which in turn, should affect me. No longer is the person that wronged me the bad person I am having conflicts with, but rather, I am learning to see them as children of God, regardless of whether or not they are Christians. Through the large theme of unity, my time at Urbana showed me what it means to love what God loves and to have my heart broken for what breaks God’s heart. I’ve learned that to “live a life worthy of the calling”, I must first change my views and view things through the lens of God. Before we can go out and “change the world”, God’s people must be come together despite our differences and diversity and still be able to be unified because of our one God.

One worship song greatly sums us what I learned at Urbana: “Unify us, purify us, so that we may change the world”.