Urbana 06: 24-7 USA Takes Prayer to 23,000 StudentsWendy Porterfield - 5 Feb 2007

For sixty years, God has been using InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's Urbana conventions to change the lives of students and to advance His Kingdom in our world.  Since the first Urbana convention in 1946, InterVarsity has called every student generation to participate in God's mission.

Urbana 06 was held from December 27-31 in St. Louis, Missouri, and six of us from the 24-7 Prayer USA team were invited to set up a prayer room space for students to use throughout the conference.  In cooperation with a team from SVM2 (Student Volunteer Movement 2), we turned a massive, fluorescent-lit room into a very cool room for prayer and worship.  In the middle of the chaos of 23,000 people, a gigantic convention center, hundreds of missions booths, and probably more speakers and seminars and spiritual stimuli than you'll ever find in one place, students streamed in and out of the prayer room throughout each day of Urbana.  It was a place of silence, peace, and clarity for students hungry to hear God's voice at this once-in-a-lifetime event.

Colors collided all over the room, where prayers were written in graffiti style across the butcher-papered walls.  A banner hung on the ceiling that read: "Lift Your Eyes Up," with beanbags lining the floor to encourage a posture of awe and wonder.  A rainbow of stationary filled up a wailing wall where fears and restraints were given up in surrender.  You could hardly get around the pile of construction paper crowns laid down before the table that declared the kingship of Jesus. A sea of "post-it" notes with adopted nations covered what was two days ago a world map.  Red marker almost completely overtook an area loaded with newspaper as the blood of Jesus symbolically called out for justice on Earth. There were hay bales in a corner commemorating the "Haystack Prayer Meeting" which took place in Massachusetts some 200 years ago.  At that prayer meeting, students gave themselves to God in the place of prayer and ultimately gave their lives in a volunteer movement toward the un-reached peoples of the earth.  Thin pieces of rope hung down and touched the straw, covered with paper clipped cards carrying the names of hundreds of universities which they symbolically took and carried into Heaven.  And there were college students everywhere, kindly competing for floor space in which to take up temporary residence... hands raised, knees bowed, Bibles opened, hungry to hear from God and be heard by Him. The sincere desire in the air to surrender and serve God was astounding.

Here are some of the heart-cries of students, written on the wall in a corner reserved for prayers for America's campuses:

University of Indianapolis - God, we have fallen so far from our original vision of a Christian school. We have bowed to the gods of tolerance, and sacrificed truth for the sake of acceptance. Please forgive us. Please revive our hearts for you and give us a passion for your glory. Help us to love you again. Amen.

University of Wisconsin-Madison - God lives there. Still. Now. Amen.

Rollins College (Winter Park, FL) - Break our apathy and our arrogance and our trust in wealth and status. Your banner over us is love. Give us vision and new life.

University of California-Irvine - That Your light would shine brightly and that those who know You would not be apathetic. That we would GET INVOLVED in our community!

College and university campuses in the U.S.: What defining pivot points in individual, social, and cultural circles they are, and what potential the kingdom of God has in their midst! We must not run from these institutions, but infiltrate them with the life of Jesus.

If you want to participate in the content of Urbana 06, you can download a webcast of the plenary sessions.