After 12 years as ERI’s co-founder and President, I am stepping down. My last day will be June 12th.

I spent months considering this from every angle and getting advice from my most trusted friends, and thanks to nine months of hard work and preparation, I’m not worried about ERI surviving this transition. The team is fantastic, and I found someone I’m genuinely thrilled about to take ERI into the next season. 

His name is Greg Austen, and I think you’re going to love him.

Greg brings more than 25 years of experience as a mission-driven executive leader. He cares a lot about what he calls “listening conversations,” training and empowering fresh generations, and a compassionate and intellectually rigorous pro-life movement that is reconnected to character, civility, and a holistic understanding of human life rooted in the Imago Dei. These passions — part of Greg’s core values — are also ERI’s DNA. And knowing Greg and the convictional leader he is, told me everything I needed to know.

Before coming to ERI, Greg served for six and a half years as the Executive Director of Church Outreach and Engagement at Care Net, where he led a national team that equipped pregnancy centers and churches to serve women and men facing pregnancy decisions. Before that, he spent 11 years at the National Fatherhood Initiative as Senior Director of National Programming. He is a licensed Teaching Elder in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, holds a Doctor of Ministry from Westminster Theological Seminary, and is the author of several books, including How I Became a Christian Despite the Church, Christian Nationalism: A Constructive Conversation, and Irreplaceable: Recovering God’s Heart for Dads.

While working at Care Net, Greg called me out of the blue seven years ago. He’d read an article I’d written and wanted to talk about it because he saw genuine overlap between what ERI was doing and what he was building at Care Net. Next thing I knew Greg had us presenting together at the next three national Care Net conferences, where we’d co-lead a half-day seminar. We weren’t just filling time; we were working through the same questions from different angles, and it was some of the most energizing collaboration I’d had in years. 

Greg’s ideas and enthusiasm got me more excited about hanging out with him, but that’s not the only thing about him that stuck with me. Greg and I would hang out after the sessions ended over dinner or a drink at the hotel, and we rarely talked shop. He’d ask about my wife, Hannah. About my faith. About what I was wrestling with. He wanted to get into the real stuff, not just compare notes on the pro-life movement, though we had a lot in common when it came to those concerns. I don’t merely respect Greg’s résumé or the books he’s written; I trust him as a good man and leader. And I think you will too.

He is exactly who ERI needs for this next chapter.

As for what’s next for me, I’ve spent my life believing that human dignity is worth fighting for, and I still do. The arena is changing; the conviction isn’t. I’ll have a lot more to say about where I’m headed on my own blog and podcast later this year, after a long-awaited sabbatical. I hope you’ll follow along.

I’m proud of what we’ve built together, and I’m confident it’s in good hands.

For those of you I’ve been privileged to know personally over these years, Greg and I hope to connect with as many of you as possible in the coming weeks. If we don’t get to connect before my last day, please know how much your friendship and support have meant to me.

Thank you for everything you’ve meant to this work. It has been one of the great privileges of my life.

P.S. You can read Greg’s full bio at EqualRightsInstitute.com/Greg. I hope you’ll take a moment to get to know him.

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