MEQUON, Wis. - Rev. John Nunes, president and CEO of Lutheran World Relief, an international relief and development agency working in 35 countries, will be the  featured guest speaker for Concordia University's Fourth Annual Bartling Lecture on Tuesday, April 14, 2008, from 7-8:30 p.m. and Wednesday, April 15, 2008, from 12-1 p.m. in the Lake Shore Room.   

The Bartling Lecture will focus on, "Moving from Overwhelmed to Engaged."  The event is free and open to the public. For more information about the event, please contact, Dr. Timothy Maschke, at (262) 243-4252.

Nunes has more than 25 years of experience and expertise ranging from offering cultural commentary to teaching incarnational spirituality to lecturing on postcolonial poetry in his roles a speaker, musician, writer, youth director, pastor and professor. He has given keynote addresses at both scholarly conferences and youth gatherings of 40,000 participants. His book, Voices from the City (1999, Concordia Publishing House), attempts to capture the complex challenges of poverty, crime, and multicultural ministry.           

Nunes holds advanced academic degrees from schools affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS). He is currently a PhD candidate at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

For eight years (1996-2004), Nunes was a board member of Wheat Ridge Ministries, a national Lutheran health and pastoral services agency. He continued as a research associate in urban ministry at Wheat Ridge until joining Lutheran World Relief.