1) "A Join-In" and no solidarity dinner
This year, one of the evening plenaries was set aside for doing making "Caregiver Kits" to the caregivers in Swaziland. It was basically a giant assembly line that each participant got to go through once, somewhat like a grown-up version of the little missions projects we do at VBS at home. Because of the massive number of participants, while we were seated, they had some little activities planned for us, such as a few short videos to watch and some questions for small group discussion. From what Greg Jao said that night (and from the name of the night itself), I think the whole point of it was to "join in" with what God was doing in and through others around the world - to feel a solidarity with the caregivers, if you will. Because of this, I believe that the solidarity dinner was purposely removed in favor of the join-in.
Now all of you who were at Urbana 09 are probably thinking, "No solidarity dinner? No mush and tiny Dixie cup of water? That's awesome!" I'm not going to disagree with you, but in my opinion, the Join-In was far from what the organizers had originally hoped for, in a couple of ways. First of all, the entire night seemed to embody the triumphalistic "West to the Rest" mentality that was so discouraged in both plenary sessions and in seminars. I grew uncomfortable with the loud cheering and the endless high-fives, as if we've contributed anything to the cause or accomplished something, when none of us paid for anything in the kits or really spent any energy putting them together. It didn't feel like we were "joining in" to anything - it felt like we were congratulating ourselves on a job well done. Secondly, the night went significantly longer than originally planned, leaving most of us bored and tired in the stands. This resulted in antics like the wave going around and people fighting to be captured on the big screen, which was understandable but still bothered me.
As you can tell, the join-in wasn't my favorite thing in the world, but in its defense, I remember thinking after the last Urbana that we talked so much about poverty and world hunger but didn't actually do anything about it. This year, the Urbana organizers decided to give us an opportunity to do something about social justice instead of just talking about it. Great intentions, but it didn't turn out exactly as what they had planned. I might write another post with some more thoughts on this. Stay tuned.
2) Excellent, relevant arts presentations
I'm not going to pretend to be some sort of arts expert, but I thought that the drama and dance performances this year were extremely well-done and especially memorable. Unlike three years ago, there was an awesome, hilarious series of skits this year with continuity throughout the entire conference. Also, there seemed to be a fusion of song, dance, and drama this Urbana that wasn't there last Urbana.
For those of you who weren't at this Urbana and are looking for some light, fun entertainment (not David Platt), I really recommend watching the arts performances, especially The Great Invitation videos, which can all be found here.
An aside - here's a quote from the book You Lost Me that describes disconnects between young adult Christians and the church:
"A related gap is the church's loss of 'creatives,', musicians, visual and performance artists, filmmakers, poets, skaters, and surfers, storytellers, writers, and so in...Frequently the modern church struggles to know what to do with right-brained talent. What has traditionally been a fertile gruond for the arts - the church - is now generally perceived as uncreative, overprotective, and stifling."I must say that I am very impressed with Intervarsity's commitment to give students opportunities to glorify God through all their talents.
3) Lesser focus on poverty/social justice and more on evangelism and sharing the gospel.
One of my friends here in Fort Wayne told me that he was at the last Urbana, and he said that he was bothered by the you-should-feel-guilty-for-buying-Starbucks-coffee-because-there-are-starving-kids-everywhere mentality. Even though I didn't really feel the same way as him, I could definitely see why. This year, the focus seemed to be exclusively on evangelism and the proclamation of the gospel, and there was very little time dedicated during plenaries to social justice issues, such as human trafficking, poverty, and world hunger. This is probably a function of the differing themes, with the theme for Urbana 2012 being "The Great Invitation", a seeming evangelistic-leaning theme, and the theme for Urbana 2009 being "The Word Became Flesh", which focused on incarnational living and missions. Not really better or worse either way, just different.
This last one is just my opinion, but:
4) Overall, less memorable speakers.
This is super subjective, but I think I enjoyed the speakers at the last Urbana significantly more than this one. My sister made the observation the speakers this year seemed to be really, really excellent (David Platt, Ram) or either forgettable (Terry LeBlanc, IFES guy) or didn't seem to have much to offer (Chai Ling, Brazilian lady). I really don't mean any of these speakers disrespect, as they all brought something different to the table (Urbana theme reference intended), but three years ago, I felt like my mind was constantly being blown by the speakers and I didn't feel that way this year. Maybe it's just because I've already been to an Urbana. Or maybe it's because there were less speakers this year due to the Join In. Or maybe that I connected better to the theme three years ago. Either way, off the top of my head, I remember loving the talks by Ramez, Oscar M, Sundar Krishnan, the rich Indian woman, Patrick Fung, and Korean-missionary-to-Japan Oh. Each of those talks and testimonies were life-changing to me in some way. This year, I just didn't feel that way about the speakers. Again, it could just be that I'm much different this year or that the topics spoken on didn't connect to me as well, but I definitely think I enjoyed the speakers more three years ago.
In addition, I enjoyed the exposition of Ramez Attalah more than Calisto Odede, but there really wasn't too much of a difference. Maybe I was just swayed by being overly moved by Ramez's awesome plot twist that made him choke up in front of everyone. But Calisto's "If it's not good enough for local consumption, it's not good enough for export" line was also really awesome.
All in all, the two Urbana's were actually very similar, with the main difference being difference emphases, which is probably from the theme difference. If you asked me, "So which Urbana was better?", I would respond, "It's not really for me to judge which one was 'better', but God worked in my life profoundly in different ways through both conferences."
Urbana 2012 Posts
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