A Debrief Guide You Can Use Immediately After Urbana
Urbana creates space for people to encounter Jesus, hear God’s heart for the world, and join the global Church in mission.
But formation happens after they return home. The first 1–4 weeks determine whether their experience translates into direction, obeidnece, and discipleship
This guide equips you (whether you are a campus staff, student leader, church leader, or volunteer)to walk with anyone after Urbana, regardless of what they experienced or how they’re feeling now.
And as you read this guide, remember, your role is not to manufacture outcomes. Your role is to create space for Scripture, the Spirit, community, and wise reflection to do their work.
Here's what's inside
1️⃣ Core Principle: Normalize the Full Range of Post-Urbana Experiences
2️⃣ A Framework for Debrief Conversation
3️⃣ Communal Follow Up Ideas
4️⃣ Debrief Questions
5️⃣ Final Encouragement
1. Core Principle: Normalize the Full Range of Post-Urbana Experiences
Urbana is global, catalytic, cross-cultural .... and people come home in very different places.
That’s normal. That’s healthy. That’s often how God often works.
People in your group may return:
- Energized: “I’m ready. I know what God wants next.”
- Overwhelmed: “It was amazing… but a lot.”
- Confused: “My categories don’t work anymore.”
- Tender: “I cried every day and don’t know why.”
- Flat or Skeptical: “I’m not sure what the big deal was.”
- Quietly Hopeful: “Something shifted. I just don’t have words yet.”
- Wrestling with injustice, colonial history, or church pain
- Processing cross-cultural dynamics they experienced
- Feeling family tension around calling or expectations
Your job is not to push for a specific reaction.
Your job is to create a safe, honest, pressure-free environment where their real story can surface — and where Scripture and community can help make meaning.
❌ Avoid assumptions like:
- “Everyone should come back inspired."
- “Everyone should know their calling by now.”
- “Everyone should want to be a missionary.”
- “Everyone should have the same kind of encounter.”
✔ Practical Ways to Normalize the Range
Use normalizing statements:
- “There’s no one right way to return from Urbana.”
- “God works differently in each of us.”
Give a “range statement” in group settings:
“Some of us are energized, some confused, some tired, some skeptical, some hopeful. All of that is normal. God meets us on different timelines and in different ways.”
Give permission to those who feel ‘behind’:
- “Slow processing is still faithful processing.”
- “Clarity is not the measure of impact.”
Ask curious—not evaluative—questions:
- “What’s staying with you?”
- “What are you grateful for? And what’s still confusing?”
- (Avoid: “So… how was it?”)
Use low-pressure check-ins:
- Emoji check-in: Pick a few emojis that can describe your experience or how you're feeling after Urbana?
- One-word check-in: What's one word that describes your Urbana experience?
- Non-evaluative 1–10 scale: How stirred do you feel? No number is better.
Encourage full, honest stories — not just highlight reels. Invite unresolved questions, tensions, surprises, and even disappointments alongside joy.
Use Jonah as a biblical frame: Jonah experienced clarity, resistance, obedience, anger, compassion, and confusion — often in the same calling journey. Your people may too.
2. A Simple Debrief Framework from LeadX
This four-movement rhythm is what our Urbana coaches used.
It works for anyone — energized, overwhelmed, skeptical, confused, or quietly processing — whether you were at Urbana or not.
It keeps conversations grounded in Jesus, Scripture, and the Spirit’s work.
Movement 1: Clarify the Felt Need
Start with the question that invites them to set the agenda: “What’s staying with you from Urbana?”
Variations:
- “What felt most real?”
- “What’s lingering — good or hard?”
Resist the urge to steer the conversation toward what you hope they got out of Urbana.
Movement 2: Create Safety
Signal that this is a pressure-free space:
- “You don’t have to have anything figured out yet.”
- “Different reactions are normal.”
- “We’ll listen for what Jesus is doing in you. And there's no right answer or pace.”
Safety → honesty → discernment.
Movement 3: Coach
Ask reflective, Spirit-sensitive questions:
- “Where did you notice God?”
- “What surprised or disrupted you?”
- “What emotion keeps resurfacing?”
- “What might God be inviting you to notice next?”
- “What Scripture from Urbana keeps coming back?”
Asking about their TruCenter assessment can also be a helpful way of inviting them to share openly:
- “How does what stirred at Urbana connect with how God wired you for mission?”
- “When did you feel your Top 5 motivations activate at Urbana?”
- “Where in the week did something energize you in a way that felt deeply ‘you’?”
Mirror what you hear. Listen. Ask open ended questions. Don’t rush solutions.
Let patterns and themes emerge.
Movement 4: Offramp → One Small, Faithful Next Yes
As the conversation closes, help them name one concrete step that honors what God has already been stirring.
Simply ask:
“What’s one small, faithful next yes you want to take?”
If they are having a hard time, offer possibilities (not persrcriptions):
Personal
- Begin a weekly prayer or Scripture rhythm
- Revisit a seminar, passage, or theme from Urbana
- Make intentional space for rest or healing, discernment, and rest
Relational / Communal
- Meet with a pastor, mentor, friend, or family member to process calling
- Share briefly in a group gathering
- Enter communal discernment with a small group or ministry team
- Study the book of Jonah together
Missional
- Explore a mission org, country, or people group
- Join a local justice, reconciliation, or compassion effort
- Begin praying weekly for a global partner or unreached people group
- Follow up with a missions organization or vocational mentor from Urbana
Keep it small. Big pressure crushes transformation; small obedience sustains it.
Note for highly motivated or "on-fire" participants:
Perhaps they were in LeadXperience and are coming back with a passionate commitment to serve in leadership or start a Bible study. Others may be returning with a BHAG (Big Holy Audacious Goal). That's amazing!
Even if they flew through movements 1-3, this movement is still critical. Help them turn their Urbana fire into something practical and concrete.
3. Strengthen Your Ministry Through Urbana Follow-Up
Follow-up isn’t just a nice thing to do after a big event... it fuels momentum, leadership development, and missional clarity.
🌿 1. Host an “Urbana Stories” Gathering
2–3 minutes per person. No sermons needed.
This builds:
- vision
- prayerfulness
- global awareness
- expectancy
- community trust
It serves BOTH those who attended and those who didn't and gives your community a new shared experience together.
🔥 2. Invite Returning Participants to Lead Something
Examples:
- A global worship moment
- A reflection from Jonah
- A justice or missions prayer
- A simple discernment practice
- A brief testimony
Shared leadership multiplies ministry capacity and ownership. LeadXperience students in particular will likely be returning with leadership energy, hear what God did and invite them to take a faithful next step!
🌎 3. Let Urbana's 3 Questions Shape Your Community’s Vision
At Urbana 25 we asked three big questions:
What is God revealing through His Word?
What is God doing at this moment in the world?
What is God calling me to do?
Invite your whole community to reflect on these together.
🙌 4. Keep Following Up
Schedule 1–2 touchpoints in the coming weeks and months:
- “What’s still with you?”
- “What’s getting clearer?”
- “What’s your next yes now?”
Formation grows through repetition, not urgency.
4. Debrief Questions You Can Use Now
Use these five questions and you have your debrief ready to go — whether a 1:1, small group, or church context:
- “What’s staying with you from Urbana?”
- “How are you feeling now that you’re back?”
- “Where did you sense God most clearly?”
- “What might God be inviting you to pay attention to?”
- “What’s your next yes to Jesus?”
No prep is needed. Just presence, curiosity, and prayer.
Final Encouragement for Ministry Leaders
You don’t need to be an Urbana expert. You don’t need a perfect plan. You don’t even need to have been there.
You only need a little bit of:
- hospitality
- curiosity
- discernment
- patience
Your presence is the bridge between: a powerful global conference and a transformed season of mission and discipleship.
Urbana planted seeds. Your follow-up helps them take root — in individuals, in your ministry, and in God’s world.
Return to the Staff Resource Hub
☎️ Contact Us
For additional questions, feel free to reach out to the Urbana team! We look forward to serving you!
- Email: urbana@intervarsity.org
- Teams Channel: Urbana 25 🌵 | All InterVarsity Staff
