Training Through Travel
Upcoming TRips
Biblical Turkey
Date: March 8-20, 2026
Urbana Seminary’s Training through Travel is delighted to announce a new trip to the lands of the Bible. This March 8-20, 2026, you can join us for a trip through Turkey to see Biblical sites.
Did you know that there are so many Bible-related sites in Turkey that the country is often referred to as the “second Holy Land”? This Bible Lands trip is designed to deepen your ability to read the Bible better to hear from God—in reality, it’s a discipleship trip, giving you tools for envisioning the world of the Bible and understanding what God was doing.
What We’ll See
Biblical Turkey 2026 will give you a panoramic view of the growth of the early church in the period of AD 50-100! We will travel to Antioch to see the city and its harbor—the site where the Gentiles were first part of the intentional ministry of the early preachers and evangelists, where Peter came and preached, where Barnabas and Paul were commissioned for their first Missionary Journey. We’ll visit Tarsus to ponder Paul’s origins. As we travel West, we will follow in the footsteps of Paul’s first, second, and third Missionary Journeys.
In Ephesus, we will consider the amazingly preserved remains of the city where both Paul and John had extended ministry. Imagine sitting in the huge theater of Ephesus to consider all that God did there through his apostles, as well as reconstruct in our minds the raucous riot that took place right where we will be sitting! Did you know that early church tradition says that John brought Jesus’ mother, Mary, here after Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70?
Then we turn North and visit the seven Churches of Revelation. This lets us go deeper into what these sites and their history can teach us about what the Book of Revelation is all about. Why did John write a book like this? You’ll also get the chance to enjoy Istanbul and the history of the early church, as well as some unexpected Old Testament connections! So much to see and so much for each of us as we grow in Christ!
Previous Trips
Inklings Tour
Date: September 16-27 2025
Join us as we visit the locations where C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the other Inklings lived and worked. This will be an unforgettable tour through the heart of England! Dr. Melody Green, who teaches classes on Tolkien, Lewis, and the Inklings at Urbana Seminary and has extensive experience speaking and publishing on them, will be leading the tour.
Prague to Geneva Reformation Study Tour
Tour Dates: May 31 – June 10, 2024
Cities: Prague, Wittenberg, Erfurt, Eisenach, Rudesheim, Mainz, Strasbourg, Zurich, Geneva
Urbana Seminary’s Dr. Joe Thomas and Dr. Mark Draper traced a rich Protestant heritage through four countries: the Czech Republic, France, Germany, and Switzerland. Joe and Mark co-taught a doctoral-level course on the Reformation and led a Reformation Tour for the second time.
On this 11-day journey, Joe and Mark shared insights about the spiritual life of the Reformers, focusing on the context and application of their teachings. There was also time for spiritual reflection and group discussions.
The Land of Israel Tour
MARCH 8-19 2023
A few words from our participants:
“I loved being in the actual places where so many Bible events took place – it deepened my love and appreciation for how TRUE everything is, how abundant the evidence from thousands of years ago – and how humbling to think ever more deeply about the impact God’s Word & His Truth has for all of us. The trip allowed us to see SO many places from N to S in Israel, covering both OT and NT history – no time was wasted….so we could make the most of all the time we had.”
“I really appreciated the theology of “place”.
“I really enjoyed seeing where Jesus spent his earthly life. It brought the Bible to life in a new way.”
In the Footsteps of Paul: Turkey and Greece
MARCH 8 – 20th, 2022
The Footsteps of Paul trip was devoted to tracing the steps of the apostle Paul on his missionary journeys in Acts. The tour visited strategic points from his ministry and from the Seven Churches of Revelation—Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Hierapolis, Laodicea, Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Delphi, Athens, and Corinth.
In the words of one participant, “We sat in the theater at Ephesus and pondered his 3-year ministry in that city, reconstructing in our minds the raucous riot that occurred right where we stood. We walked the streets of the city, and stood in the shadow of the Acropolis on Areopagus Hill in Athens where Paul preached the famous sermon recorded in Acts 17. We learned how the narratives of Scripture always fill out in all their dimensions when we see where they happened.”
Reformation History Tour
Cities: Prague, Wittenberg, Erfurt, Eisenach, Mainz, Worms, Basel, Zurich, Geneva
The Land of Israel Tour
March 15-28, 2018
The goal of the Land of Israel tour was to give participants a feel for the backdrop of the Bible—to see where it happened, how geography works into the exciting narratives and history of Scripture, and what we can observe and learn from the extensive archaeological work that has been carried out in Israel.
The teaching was given by our own Dr. Ken Cuffey, with a discipleship emphasis to give participants the tool of reading the Bible in its space and time context. For those interested the tour also had a value-added credit option: a course titled The Land of Israel: Geography, History, Archaeology, and Theology offered in Spring 2018.
Urbana Theological Seminary