2012 Leadership Conference Keynote Speakers

Mrs. Rebecca Meidinger

Rebecca Meidinger is the director of Far Above Rubies, a ministry to teen girls. She is also an experienced speaker with a background in youth ministry, outdoor camping ministry, and abstinence-until-marriage education.

Rebecca's passion is to see teenagers grasp their true identity in Christ, as loved and redeemed children of God, and to equip them with knowledge, empowerment, and practical skills to build healthy relationships and live with sexual purity and integrity.

Rebecca is married to Paul, a firefighter with the Fargo Fire Department. They have three young children and live in Fargo. Rebecca loves to spend time outdoors with her family, run, walk, bike, study the Scriptures with girlfriends over coffee, bake with her daughters, and go on dates with her husband.

Pastor John Burke

John Burke is the lead pastor at Gateway Community Church in Austin, Texas. He is the author of No Perfect People Allowed and Soul Revolution, How Imperfect People Become All God Intended (www.soulrevolution.net). John is also the president of Emerging Leadership Initiative (ELI), a non-profit organization founded to help establish a multiplying network of missional churches that envision, equip, and empower young emerging leaders to raise the church up out of the culture while maintaining biblical integrity.

Before starting Gateway, John was the executive director of ministries at Willow Creek Community Church.

He and his wife Kathy are the parents of two children, Ashley and Justin.

Professor Walter Sundberg

Walter Sundberg began his work at Luther Seminary in 1978-81 as an instructor in systematic theology. He returned as assistant professor of church history in 1984, was named associate professor in 1986 and was named professor in 1994. He was acting chair of the history department in 1987-88 and Chair of the History Department from 1991-1993. He was a visiting professor at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul in 1985-86.

Ordained in 1981, he was assistant minister of Como Park Lutheran Church, St. Paul, in 1981-84. He was an instructor at Augsburg College, Minneapolis, in 1980, in the U.S. Army Chaplains Program in 1977, and at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia in 1976.

Sundberg earned the B.A. degree magna cum laude in 1969 from St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn., where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He received both the M.Div. degree and the Ph.D. degree magna cum laude from Princeton Theological Seminary (1973 and 1981). He studied at the University of Tubingen, Germany, in 1971-72. He received the Rockefeller Theological Fellowship and the American Lutheran Church Graduate Fellowship.

He is a member of the advisory council of Interpretation, and the editorial boards of Lutheran Quarterly and Lutheran Commentator. A board member of both the Great Commission Network and Lutheran Bible Ministries, he has also served on the board of Lutheran Bible Institute and the ALC Inter-Church Relations Committee.

Sundberg contributed "Ministry in 19th Century European Lutheranism" to Called and Ordained: Lutheran Perspectives on the Office of Ministry (edited by Todd Nichol and Marc Kolden, 1990). He has published articles in First Things, Lutheran Quarterly, dialog, and Lutheran Forum. His writings for church curriculum include Day by Day: Luther on the Christian Life (1983). He is the author of The Bible in Modern Culture (second edition, Eerdmans, 2002), which he wrote with Roy Harrisville.