Urbana Dispatch #3: Yes, we CAN change the world!
No one comes to Urbana for fun. This is not a “winter break” vacation. Not by a long shot.
There are a couple of common threads that we have heard from each of the over 100 students we have talked to at our Urbana09 booth and the countless others that we have sat next to in the morning worship service, met in the lunch line or ridden with in the hotel elevator.
The common thread that these students have is that they are seeking how they can serve God with the resources (their lives, their money and their talent) that God has given them. They see injustice, human slavery, poverty and suffering caused by environmental issues, greed and other sins and, deep in their hearts, they want to do something about it.
For some of us, especially those of us who are approaching the later parts of our lives, we may see this kind of thinking as idealistic. We might remember when we were “that age” and thought, as these students do, that we could change the world.
The real truth is, that some of us did change the world because we chose to follow God’s leading in our lives. Just like these students, we asked ourselves the same question that they are asking. “What is God calling me to do?”
Urbana challenges the students who are here in a few important areas of their lives. First, there is the challenge of resources. They are challenged to use what they have to further the purposes of the kingdom. Second, they are challenged to use their gifts and talents. And finally, they are challenged to commit to take action.
For some of the students that accept these challenges, it means changing their plans. For some, it means the comfort of knowing that they are doing what God intends them to do. For some, Urbana is a wakeup call when they realize that following God’s will is a lot better than trying to follow their own imperfect wills.
Last night, I sat next to a couple in their late 20s who were both seniors in college (she was a music major with a concentration in piano performance and he was majoring in economics). As I do with just about everyone who I have run into here, I enjoy finding out why they took their time and money to come to St. Louis for a week.
As we were talking, they told me that they had met in high school, had gone to different colleges and were engaged to be married in June. Their wedding was all planned.
They decided to come to Urbana so that together, before they got married, could try and discern what God wanted them to do with their lives as a couple. We chatted about their decision, the heart changes that they had gone through in the past 4 years (“I used to be concerned about making a lot of money but now, I don’t think that that’s really important in God’s eyes. There are more important things than accumulating wealth”) and what their future plans were.
As I was walking back to my hotel after that conversation, I couldn’t help thinking about the wisdom of what this couple was doing and the small part that Care of Creation and you, who help us do what we do, are playing in helping them and others make decisions like the ones they are contemplating.
I’m going to go a bit further here and ask for your help. I realize that you have not met this couple (maybe you know someone who is at Urbana) but I am going to ask you to pray for them and the others who are, maybe, making the same kinds of decisions about their lives. When we do this, we are helping in a small way, to further God’s purpose in this world – the spread of the gospel and reconciliation of His people back to him. We are working to build shalom and put things back to the way that God intended them to be.
Maybe it’s not the “winter break” that you had planned but, hey, when did God stop acting in ways that we expect?
For the entire Care of Creation Family (some of us who are here at Urbana09 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA), thanks for joining together in this prayer.
God Bless!
Fred Gluck
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