Urbana 09 News Release #1
For Immediate Release

(Madison, WI)—Ramez Atallah, general secretary of the Bible Society of Egypt, and program chair for the Lausanne III World Congress, will be the Bible Expositor at Urbana 09, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s twenty-second student missions conference. Urbana 09 will be held at the America’s Center and the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, Missouri, December 27-31, 2009.

The scriptural focus of Urbana 09 will be the first four chapters of the Gospel of John, according to Urbana director Jim Tebbe. “The Gospel of John is a powerful example of missionary communication,” Tebbe said. “It is explicitly evangelistic and intends that those who come to believe through his witness will in turn become witnesses.”

Atallah was born in Egypt but spent his teen years in Canada. He became involved with InterVarsity while a student at McGill University and at one time served as Quebec director. He received his seminary training at Gordon-Conwell Seminary in Massachusetts and is currently the Honorary President of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students.

“Ramez has a passion for inductive Bible Study,” Tebbe said. “He has been practicing it and teaching it all his life. His personable style, sense of humor, deep devotion to God and commitment to His Word, along with his experience as a dual citizen of Egypt and Canada, make him an ideal expositor for Urbana 09.”

Atallah joins a distinguished list of Bible teachers who have spoken at Urbana, including A.W. Tozer (Urbana 54), Donald Grey Barnhouse (Urbana 57), John R.W. Stott (Urbana 64, 67, 70, 73, 76, and 79), and Ajith Fernando (Urbana 87, 90, 93, and 06).

InterVarsity’s Urbana student missions conference is one of the longest-running institutions of North American evangelicalism. The first conference was held in Toronto in 1946, right after World War II broadened the horizons of a new generation of North Americans. For most of the next six decades the triennial conference was held on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 2006 the conference drew more than 20,000 people to its new location in St. Louis, Missouri.

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship is an interdenominational ministry to university students in the United States with over 31,000 students involved on 585 campuses nationwide. InterVarsity is a founding member of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, advancing Christian student work in 150 countries.

For more information contact:
Christy Chappell
Urbana Communications Director
608-443-3671