A Practical, High-Impact Debrief You Can Use Immediately — In Any Ministry Context
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 — and the first 1–4 weeks determine whether their experience translates into direction, obeidnece, and discipleship
This guide equips you — whether you’re a campus minister, pastor, staff member, student leader, or volunteer — to walk with anyone after Urbana, regardless of what they experienced or how they’re feeling now.
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.
1️⃣ Normalize the Full Range of Post-Urbana Experiences
2️⃣ LeadXperience: Raising Student Leaders
3️⃣ Speaker Spotlight: Rev. Dr. Soong-Chan Rah
4️⃣ Stay Connected & Prepared
5️⃣ Prayer & MPD
1. 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 how God often works.
You may hear:
- 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 justice, colonial history, or church pain
- Processing cross-cultural dynamics or racial identity
- 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 disappointment.
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, Ready-Made Debrief Method: The LeadX Framework
This four-movement rhythm is what our Urbana coaches are trained in and 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 does 80% of the work:
“What’s staying with you from Urbana?”
Variations:
- “What felt most real?”
- “What’s lingering — good or hard?”
Let them set the agenda.
Movement 2: Create Safety
Say things like:
- “You don’t have to have anything figured out yet.”
- “All reactions are normal.”
- “We’ll listen for what Jesus is doing at your 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 echoing?”
If they took TruCenter:
- “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. Don’t rush solutions.
Let the Spirit speak through reflection, silence, and community.
Movement 4: Offramp → One Small, Faithful Next Yes
End with:
“What’s one small, faithful next yes you want to take?”
Possible next steps:
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, 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 or country
- Join a local justice or reconciliation effort
- Begin praying weekly for a global partner or people group
- Follow up with a missions organization or vocational mentor from Urbana
Keep it small. Big pressure crushes transformation; small obedience sustains it.
3. Strengthen Your Ministry Through Urbana Follow-Up
Follow-up isn’t just care — it fuels momentum, leadership development, and missional clarity.
🌿 1. Host a Short “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 Small
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.
🌎 3. Let Urbana Shape Your Community’s Vision
Ask: “What dreams, questions, or burdens emerged that God might be inviting us to steward together?”
Often your next breakthrough is already sitting in someone’s heart.
🙌 4. Keep Following Up
Schedule 1–2 touchpoints in the coming weeks and even 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?”
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 need to have been there.
You only need:
- hospitality
- curiosity
- discernment
- patience
- Scripture
- prayer
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
