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As a student at MIT, David Von Stroh participated in a Global Urban Trek to Bangkok, and after graduation he returned as a career missionary to the Bangkok slum of Klong Toey. Young Americans like Von Stroh are gathering into communities to minister in the poorest sections of the world's largest cities.

Paul Borthwick, a senior consultant with Development Associates International, a leader-training agency, lauds college students' willingness to work as partners and servant-leaders among indigenous Christian leaders. "Students these days have grown up with a global church consciousness," Borthwick says. "They have an empathetic understanding of different ethnicities and cultures. Their global consciousness and their own histories of brokenness enable them to humbly relate to people in different countries and from different cultures."

Unfortunately, many students today exhibit theological confusion. "Too many college students are not convinced about the exclusive claims of Christ and the eternal lostness of humanity," says Terry Erickson, InterVarsity's director of evangelism. "Students today are more grace-oriented than truth-oriented." Erickson notes that young people on missions trips today may not be articulating the gospel's promise of eternal salvation through Christ's death on the Cross as clearly as they are demonstrating their concern for social justice and compassion for the poor.

Such reluctance to combine grace and truth—as Jesus did—is troubling, perhaps even fatal, if not addressed. A large chunk of the missionary movement of previous generations, of course, foundered on the rocks of the social gospel. But if today's students can bring together their works of grace with the Haystack organizers' words of truth, perhaps the evangelization of the world will see significant progress in this generation.

One Christian student, Joey Paynter, shows that much is indeed possible. She participated in a Youth With A Mission project in Bali's Kuta slum in 2001. Returning 18 months later, she naturally expected to see God transforming the lives of street kids. What Paynter didn't expect to see was the transformation of her own spiritual life. But she did, saying, "I developed a heart for the lost. Something in me just clicked."

Jonathan Rice is managing editor for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, which is sponsoring the 2006 Urbana student missions convention in December, to be held for the first time in St. Louis, Missouri. For more information on the first wave of missions spurred by the 1806 Haystack Prayer Meeting, order Christian History & Biography issue 90 at christianitytoday.com/go/americanmissions.

Copyright © 2006 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

InterVarsity's Scott Bessenecker discussed the "new friars" movement in CT's cover story on "The New Monasticism."

More about student missions at Urbana is available from the organization's website.

Last year, CT hosted a conversation between Kurt Ver Beek and Robert Priest on the efficacy of short-term missions.

Recent articles on missions include:

Lost Missions | Whatever happened to the idea of rescuing people from hell? (July 21, 2006)

Every Tribe and Class | If these missionaries have their way, millions of Taiwanese will no longer be too embarrassed or intimidated to go to church. (June 14, 2006)

Winning the Oral Majority | Mission agencies rethink outreach to the world's non-literate masses. (March 17, 2006)

Missions Incredible | South Korea sends more missionaries than any country but the U.S. And it won't be long before it's number one. (Feb. 24, 2006)

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September 2006, Vol. 50, No. 9