Meet the Missionaries
Craig and Alice Ott are members of the Orchard Evangelical Free Church in Barrington, IL. Craig was born and raised in Westchester, CA. He grew up in an atheist home but became a Christian in the early days of the Jesus movement in 1970, after which he began attending Del Rey Church. He earned degrees from Long Beach State (B.A.) and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (M.Div. and Ph.D.). Alice was born and raised in Akron, OH. She grew up in a strict Catholic family and became a Christian in her junior year of college, also during the Jesus Movement. She attended Ohio University (B.A.) and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (M.Div. and Ph.D.). Craig and Alice met during their time at Trinity and were married on March 19, 1977. They have 3 adult children, who are each married, and 6 grandchildren. Benjamin lives in Germany, Jonathan lives in Chicago, and Jacob lives in Amsterdam and East Africa as he works with African Inland Missions.
The Journey
After becoming a Christian, Craig became involved in leading Bible Studies at Long Beach State where he was enrolled. It was then that God put a desire on his heart to go to seminary, despite Craig’s uncertainty over what the future might hold or what use seminary would provide him. While he settled into his new environment at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS), he met many international students. Their stories and zeal for the gospel catalyzed his interest to read about missions. Through that he sensed God leading him to serve the Lord internationally. At Trinity he also met his future wife Alice, who was herself already planning to go into the mission field. Her desire was the resulting impact of a short-term trip in North Africa. Craig and Alice eventually became involved in church planting in the Chicago area and left for Germany in 1981 with Reach Global.
Since that time, they’ve had many unexpected turns along the way. Such is the nature of living for the Lord. After planting churches in Munich, Ingolstadt, Neumarkt, and Markt Indersdorf (all in Germany), Dr. Ott transitioned into serving as the Central Europe Church Planting Consultant for Reach Global. He served in this capacity from 1995 until 2002. Over about the same period, from 1998 to 2002, he also taught at the Akademie für Weltmission in Korntal, Germany, where he continues to teach regularly as an adjunct professor. He has also served since 1994 as adjunct faculty at Theologische Hochschule Ewersbach (Germany). God did mighty things in Germany over the Otts’ 21 years there. Christianity has been in decline in Europe, yet much has been done to strengthen the church over the past couple of decades.
In 2002, Dr. Ott returned to his alma mater (TEDS) to occupy the Reach Global Chair of Mission, which was established to better link the EFCA’s mission agency (Reach Global) and its seminary (TEDS). Dr. Ott was uniquely suited for this task as his particular fields of expertise include theology of mission, contextualization, and church planting. His passion for teaching men and women how to make Christ known around the world has been brought to a head at TEDS as he integrates mission theory and practice. To date, he is the author of several missions-related books, and has provided training and consulting in over 40 countries.