I said YES! at Urbana

I couldn't tell you the names of most of the speakers or what they said specifically. I don't remember the lyrics to the awesome songs we sang. I don't remember the name of my small group leader or any of the seminars I went to.

But I distinctly remember the moment during Urbana 03 when I said, "Yes, Your Majesty."

scrapbook pages of my Urbana 03 experience

We were in the Assembly Hall, the worship team was playing some song, and 16,000+ voices were singing at the top of their lungs. All the moments that week led up to that one, when I raised my hands in surrender and said, "Yes Jesus, I will follow you wherever you call me. I want to live a kingdom-oriented life."

At the time, I had no idea what saying yes would mean. It was a little scary that there was so much still unknown. But at the same time, I felt peace. I knew that committing to be a part of his kingdom was the wisest decision I could make. It was simple: there was nothing else I wanted more for my life.

apparently even then I was designing for Urbana!

It's been almost nine years since that moment. Since then I've been to two other Urbanas and spent almost six years on staff with InterVarsity. Some of my experiences have been challenging, frustrating, discouraging. Others have been overwhelmingly joyful and fulfilling. But I don't have any regrets to saying yes.

At Urbana, God will take a hold of your heart and give you a glimpse into the amazing plan he has for redeeming the world. He will call you to join with him in this worthy mission. And if you say yes, it's like no other "conference high" - it's the real deal. Your life will forever be changed, and you will know no greater joy.

I can't say where else God will bring me in the next nine years, but I know I want to keep saying "Yes, Your Majesty."

Urbana 12 is just months away. Register now, it's worth it!

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Go here to read the blog post I wrote just days after Urbana 03.

What does it look like to be a world changer?

Part of InterVarsity's vision is to "develop world changers."

As a designer and visual communicator, it's actually kind of challenging to show people what a world changer is or looks like. To invoke the idea of someone who is ready to impact the world using all the things they've learned through their InterVarsity experience, we often use images of graduates. I've been learning photography for a few months now and recently did a couple of photo shoots to gather images of graduates.

We recruited some local InterVarsity students who were graduating and got them to wear their caps and gowns. It was a fun shoot because they were all friends and it was really easy to capture moments where they were laughing and having fun.

These are some of my favorite shots. Maybe you'll see some of them on an InterVarsity brochure in the near future!

Later that week I also snuck into UW Madison's commencement ceremony (it was a public event so I didn't really have to sneak in) and took some photos of a larger scale of this idea of "world changers." It was challenging framing the images so that people's faces wouldn't be shown. But there are a few that I think will work.

Urbana Myths

I recently created an illustration for a post on our national InterVarsity blog. For some reason it's one of my favorites that I've done. I particularly enjoyed using so many bright colors. Check out the actual blog post here.

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