Prior to Luke Alliance, Corey founded and served for 15 years as the Senior Pastor of Trinity Park Church in Cary, NC, a multi-cultural church that is home to Christians from over 25 cultural backgrounds. Corey lived in China from 1998-2005, speaks Mandarin, and has served as an advisor for a large urban house church movement in China for the past 13 years.

He has been instrumental in advocating at the highest levels in Washington, D.C., and globally for arrested Chinese house church leaders, their families, and for others around the world experiencing persecution. He remains deeply connected to the unregistered church movement in China and to constituents in Washington, D.C. and in Europe.

Originally from Birmingham, Alabama, Corey has a B.A. from Auburn University and a Master of Divinity from Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando. He has been quoted as a human rights advocate by the New York Times and BBC, and his pastoral articles have been highlighted by The Gospel Coalition and published in Christianity Today.

Grace Jin Drexel is the daughter of Pastor Ezra Jin, founder of Zion Church, one of China’s largest underground house-church networks. In October 2025, Pastor Jin was arrested at his home in Beihai, Guangxi, as part of a sweeping crackdown on independent Christian worship that also targeted dozens of pastors and church members across China. Grace has since spoken out publicly to advocate for her father’s release and for countless others detained by the CCP for their faith.

Grace was previously a National Security Research Analyst on a Senate leadership committee and a professional staff member at the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), a commission tasked with documenting human rights abuses in China. She holds an M.A. in human rights and transitional justice from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a B.A. in political science from UCLA.

Corey Thomas is a strategy and operations leader with extensive experience driving transformation across high-growth companies, large-scale operations, and nascent organizations. Prior to Luke Alliance, Corey held several leadership positions in the eCommerce sector. Before his business career, he served as an Army officer with the 82nd Airborne Division.

Corey holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.S. in Science, Technology, and International Affairs from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. A missionary- and pastors-kid, Corey has been immersed in international ministry from birth. He lives in North Carolina with his wife and two daughters.

Eleanor Rits is a recent graduate of Patrick Henry College with a B.A. in Government: Strategic Intelligence track. Her professional and academic work has largely centered around human rights, including research on anti-trafficking, fair trade, and Asian security issues. Eleanor resides in Maryland with her husband and son.

Dr. Rana Siu Inboden is a Senior Fellow with the Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas-Austin. She serves as a consultant on human rights, democracy and rule of law projects in Asia for a number of non-governmental organizations and conducts research related to international human rights, Chinese foreign policy, the effectiveness of international human rights and democracy projects and authoritarian collaboration in the United Nations. Her first book, China and the International Human Rights Regime(Cambridge, 2021) examines China’s role in the international human rights regime between 1982 and 2017.

Dr. Inboden holds a DPhil from the Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxford University. She obtained an M.A. at Stanford University in East Asian Studies and a B.S. at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She was awarded a U.S. State Department Superior Honor Award for her work in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.