Rick Barger

Rick Barger is an author, pastor, educator, and longtime advocate for leadership and human flourishing. His life and work have taken him from engineering and construction in the Middle East, to parish ministry, to serving as president of a Lutheran seminary, and to decades of engagement with the people of Haiti.

An ordained Lutheran pastor, Rick has spent much of his life exploring what it means for individuals, congregations, and communities to live with purpose, generosity, and hope. He is the founder of the Haitian Timoun Foundation (HTF), which partners with Haitian-led organizations working to create opportunity and strengthen communities. He is also a trustee and a leader with the Haitian Education and Leadership Program (HELP), which provides university scholarships and leadership development for talented young Haitians.

Rick is the co-author, with Lorne Hlad, of The Re-Storied Life: A Call to Flourish. The book invites readers to examine the stories that shape their understanding of success, identity, happiness, and worth—and to discover a larger story in which flourishing is rooted in grace, relationship, purpose, and love. He is also the author of A New and Right Spirit: Creating an Authentic Church in a Consumer Culture.

Across his writing, teaching, ministry, mentoring, and work in Haiti, Rick returns to a central conviction: we become who we are through the stories we inhabit—and a different story can lead to a different way of living. Having lived with cancer for a number of years, Rick brings to his understanding of flourishing the lived experience of serious illness and uncertainty while continuing to embrace life with gratitude, humility, and hope.

Rick and his wife, Harriet, live in Decatur, Georgia. They have two adult children and five grandchildren. He is an avid outdoors person, fly fisherman, and world traveler.