A former Buddhist monk, Ellis Potter is now a minister, counselor and traveling teacher. For many years, he worked at L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland, an evangelical residential study community founded by Francis Schaeffer, and he later served as the pastor of the Basel Christian Fellowship for 10 years. With his wife, Mary, he also founded Eastern European Renewal (EER), an evangelical mission to Central and Eastern European countries.

Ellis’ dramatic conversion from Buddhism to Christianity came about as a direct result of several personal discussions with Dr. Schaeffer that took place during the turbulent seventies. After that, Ellis worked on the staff of L’Abri Fellowship until 1991. Describing this in an interview, Ellis remarked, “I was in Zen [Buddhism] and then I became confronted with the reality of Christianity. And I became convinced that it was more true, more satisfying, more absolute, more accurate, more lively… so then I became a Christian.” During his time working at Swiss L’Abri, Ellis counseled, lectured, and encouraged hundreds of students from all over the world. He has since traveled extensively on all five continents, and taught in churches, camps, conferences and universities on many other large-scale questions and beliefs characterizing different worldviews.

Ellis’ unique background encompasses music and the arts, theology and philosophy, exceptionally qualifying him to lecture on a variety of topics, such as the relevance of Christianity to various modern philosophical and social movements.