InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's Urbana Student Missions Conference is expanding its outreach this year by going on tour to campuses across the nation.
For decades, InterVarsity has relied on its Student Missions Conference to inform, recruit and send thousands of missionaries around the world. While that aspect has not changed, Tom Lin, director of Urbana and InterVarsity's vice president for missions, explains that his group will be touring campuses across the country this year.
"Most of our publicity has gone through local churches only, as well as other media, such as radio," Lin details. "But what we wanted to do is go to the actual campuses this time, talk about Urbana, and actually talk about missions, engage students in missions -- just like we would at the actual conference."
Since 1946, hundreds of thousands of students have been recruited to missions through the conferences.
"As we talk to mission agencies, large ones that I think the audience would recognize, we often hear anywhere from 50 percent to 80 percent of their personnel have come from an Urbana student missions conference," the ministry director details.
Urbana encourages students to accept the command to "go and make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19).