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Rev. Tony J. Craddock Sr..jpg

DR. TONY J. CRADDOCK, SR.,
SENIOR PASTOR

Reverend Doctor Tony J. Craddock, Sr. is a native of Detroit,Michigan and was educated in the Detroit Public School system. He proudly served in the United States Marine Corps as an Enlisted Aide and chef to the Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Commandant of the Marine Corps while serving at the Pentagon as a member of the Joint Staff. Dr. Craddock is professionally trained in culinary arts and received his training from the Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, New York, and Johnson and Wales University, Providence, Rhode Island. He retired from the Marine Corps with twenty-one years of honorable service. After retirement, he owned and operated a successful sole-proprietorship, catering to Capitol Hill and the Washington, DC metropolitan area.

Biography

In 1982, Dr. Craddock was licensed to preach the Gospel at his home church in Detroit, Michigan, the Christian Faith Missionary Baptist Church. In 1998, he was ordained by the Northern Virginia Baptist Association at the Mount Olive Baptist Church in Arlington, Virginia.


Dr. Craddock is retired from the Federal Aviation Administration as a Senior Acquisitions Advisor. He earned his Doctor of Ministry degree from the United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. His Thesis: A Church Honoring Tradition through the Word of God in a Diminishing Community was well received by his Defense Counsel. He earned his Master of Divinity from the Samuel Dewitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University, Richmond, Virginia and his Bachelor of Science in Organizational Management from Columbia Union College, Takoma Park, Maryland. He is also a Fellow of Princeton University’s Engle Preaching Institute.


Dr. Craddock has been active in the vineyard and has served as a Children and Youth Pastor, Director of the Arlington County Youth and College Division of the NAACP, Advisor for the Arlington Parent Education Board, and Chaplain for INOVA Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities. He is an active member of the Baptist General Convention of Virginia, E.K. Bailey Preaching Conference, Lott Carey Foreign Mission, Prince William Ministers Conference, Northern Virginia and Vicinity Ministers Conference, Clergy against Alzheimer’s Network and the Faith United against Alzheimer’s Coalition, which supports dementia friendly communities and advocates for increased funding and government intervention to
stop Alzheimer’s. He is humbled to have had the opportunity to lead people to Christ in a variety of settings from the highest echelons of the Government and Armed Services, to youth conferences, prisons cells and hospital rooms.


Dr. Craddock is the former Senior Pastor of the Mount Olive Baptist Church in Rectortown, Virginia. In November of 2021 Dr. Craddock became the ninth pastor of the historic St. John Baptist Church in Woodford, Virginia. He is married to his high school sweetheart, the former Stephanie May of Detroit, Michigan. They cherish being the proud parents of their three wonderful adult children who love the Lord: Tony Jr. (Danielle), Andrea, and Lauren, and the gift of their two amazing grandchildren, Natalie Grace, and Tony Jerome III (TJ).


Dr. Craddock’s favorite scripture is in the Old Testament book of Isaiah Chapter 40, verse 31. “They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint.”

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