Tom Lin, Regional Director for InterVarsity in the bread basket states of Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska has been selected to become the next Vice President of Missions and Director of the triennial Urbana Student Missions conference.

Tom is replacing Jim Tebbe who directed the last three Urbana’s. He will become the new Rector of Forman Christian College in Lahore, Pakistan when he steps down on June 30, 2010.

As the search for a replacement began, InterVarsity president Alec Hill asked for prayer that they’d find the right person to fill the role. Those prayers appear to have been answered in the form of Tom Lin.

“Tom is an entrepreneurial leader with rich experience in student ministry and missions, both in the U.S. and abroad,” says InterVarsity president Alec Hill.

It’s easy to see how Lin will be instrumental in the mission’s realm at InterVarsity, but he also seems the perfect candidate to direct Urbana. Urbana is InterVarsity’s triennial student missions conference that has so far challenged over 250,000 students since 1946 to take on the responsibility of bringing the Gospel to the nations. This appears to be right up Lin’s alley as well.

Tom loves ‘planting ministries’ nationwide and internationally — planting campus ministries on the East Coast (Boston), planting a Christian Foundation and high-tech start-ups on the West Coast (Silicon Valley), planting a “church” planting movement in the Midwest, and planting an indigenously-led movement overseas (Mongolia).

After graduating from Harvard University in 1994, Tom served with InterVarsity as Area Director (Team Leader) at Harvard and Boston University. He pioneered new Christian Fellowships at both schools, then focused on training InterVarsity missionaries, serving as Fund Development Specialist and Global Missions Consultant.

In 2000-02, Tom served as a Human Resources Director of a Fortune 500 company and Leadership Pastor at Wellspring Covenant Community Church, a Sovereign Grace connected church in the San Francisco Bay Area.

From 2002-06, Tom planted and served as International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (the IV international counterpart) Country Director of the Mongolian student movement, Fellowship of Christian Students (FCS).

Since moving back to the U.S. in 2006, Tom has been serving as InterVarsity’s Regional Director for the Central United States. In this role, he has overseen the vision, strategic planning, missionary recruitment and development, and the multi-faceted ministries of the Region (e.g. International Student Ministry, Black Campus Ministry, Alumni Ministry, Urban and Global Missions, chapter planting, etc.).

Tom also enjoys being a pioneer in the publishing world. A 2nd-generation Taiwanese American, Tom is the author of the first Asian American ministry book published by IVP, “Losing Face, Finding Grace” (1997), also published in Mandarin Chinese in 2008 in Asia and the U.S.

He has been a frequent speaker at the Urbana Conferences, which he will now be directing. He was the featured plenary speaker at Urbana ‘06. Tom is also a frequent conference speaker in the U.S. and East Asia, retreat speaker for church leaders/missions executives, and teacher for Fuller’s U.S. Center for World Mission’s Perspectives courses.

Tom serves on the Board of Directors of Wycliffe Bible Translators and on the Advisory Board of the Leadership and Legacy Foundation. He also serves on the Lausanne North American Regional Advisory Council. Tom has been consulted by leading media such Christianity Today, The Wall Street Journal, and Bott Radio Network.

Tom’s seminary studies were done at Fuller Theological Seminary. He is married to his wife of 10 years, Nancy, who is a former IV staff worker and school teacher, now turned full-time stay-at-home mom. Together they love going on world adventures with their two baby daughters, Abby (5) and Olivia (3). It is expected that they will relocated to Madison, Wisconsin, the home of IVCF ministries.

Editor’s Note: Material for this story was provided by Christian Telegraph and Tom’s own website.