Erick Schenkel has served as executive director of Jesus Film Project® since 2012, bringing to this role a varied history of Christian service. After his graduation from Harvard College, Erick led a church-planting team that established a church and an elementary school in Arlington, Massachusetts. While leading this church, Erick earned two master’s degrees and a Ph.D. from Harvard in the Study of Religion; his dissertation was published by Harvard University Press as The Rich Man and the Kingdom: John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the Protestant Establishment. While in graduate school, Erick and his wife, Elizabeth, developed a desire to live and work in the Muslim world. The Schenkels moved to Muslim Central Asia in 1996, where Erick worked in the fields of education and economic development for 11 years. While in Central Asia, they also worked as church planters alongside "JESUS" film teams, starting a Bible school and directing a movement of nationally led churches. Erick then served for five years as strategy director for North Africa, Middle East and Central Asia for Campus Crusade for Christ®.