Intervarsity Christian Fellowship recently announced it would no longer host the Urbana conference at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.
Though the Urban-Champaign facilities had served the Intervarsity Fellowship well for 50 years, the growing number of participants each year has strained available resources and space needed to conduct the conference successfully.
St. Louis, the new location, was selected for its central location near the Great Lakes. Intervarsity has promised that attendance price will decline due to better price options in St. Louis. Intervarsity plans to reserve over 10,000 rooms to house the number of students planning to attend the conference.
The 2006 Urbana conference will be held December 27-31.
According to Intervarsity, the Urbana conference will maintain its central focus, which is to “declare the biblical basis of missions, to call students to God’s mission (missio dei), to inform students on the current state of global missions, and to motivate students to participate in global and cross-cultural missions.”
The Urbana conference is held every three years, and attracts thousands of students from all over the world. Many mission organizations consider it a prime recruiting opportunity for young people interested in intercultural missions.