FLAGSTAFF, ARIZ. — Hoss Ridgeway flashed a mischievous smile as he stepped onstage at a Christian youth convention.
An pressing tone to his voice, the 6-foot-4 speaker with brilliant purple footwear and a jacket that includes a Buc-ee’s emblem (IYKYK) requested the teenagers to take out their Bibles.
“I’m kidding,” he added with a chuckle. “I’m doing comedy. Let’s have enjoyable. How about that?”
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The Friday night time crowd of 250 college students and grownup sponsors cheered to indicate its approval.
Ridgeway, a 51-year-old preacher and slapstick comedian, flew to Flagstaff final week from his residence state of Indiana.
He traveled 1,600 miles to offer leisure at a regional occasion referred to as Winterfest Manner Out West, which mixes reward and worship with loads of time for laughter.
Hoss Ridgeway, a preacher and Christian comic from Franklin, Ind., entertains the gang at Winterfest Manner Out West in Flagstaff, Ariz.
“Once I left Indianapolis this morning, it was 9 levels,” Ridgeway informed the viewers of church youth teams, primarily from Arizona, California and New Mexico. “And I’m pondering, ‘Thanks, Lord, for sending me to Arizona within the desert.’”
He paused simply briefly as giggles echoed by the lodge ballroom on this mountain group, 150 miles north of Phoenix.
“They lied to y’all,” he teased, not needing to say Flagstaff’s low temperature of 5 levels Fahrenheit that day or the close by snow-tubing park. “And I used to be packing sandals and shorts and scorpion repellent. It was superior.
“I acquired right here, and it’s simply ice,” he quipped. “I’m like, ‘I’m residence.’”
He’s actually at residence in entrance of a crowd, whether or not preaching or performing.
Ridgeway serves because the senior minister for Turning Level Church, a Franklin, Indiana, congregation with Restoration Motion roots.
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In the meantime, his clear comedy routines have taken him to church buildings and comedy golf equipment — to not point out cruise ships — in 40 states in addition to the Dominican Republic and Uganda.
He has appeared on “The Huckabee Present,” achieved a Dry Bar Comedy particular and recorded a section that can air on the Amazon Prime collection “Killer Beaz Presents …”
Regardless of his penchant for making folks snigger, Ridgeway insists he might be critical when it’s time to evangelise God’s phrase or honor the dearly departed.
Members of his congregation, which averages Sunday attendance of about 160, agree — to an extent.
“I doubt he may ship a sermon with out injecting some humor,” stated Loretta Wray, who attends Turning Level Church along with her husband, Steve.
“I believe preachers and comedians have a pair issues in widespread,” she added. “Each are attempting to ship their message in a means that will get folks to return to a realization. Hoss’ comedy is an artwork kind he makes use of to get his level throughout in a sermon.”
Whether or not quoting the Bible or telling jokes, Ridgeway — who earned a grasp’s diploma in sensible theology from Ohio Christian College — finds his identification in Jesus, Wray stated.
“That’s the place I believe his authenticity comes from,” she stated.
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His love for Christ and comedy stretches again many years to his childhood, when he moved usually because the son of a Navy sailor who later turned a minister.
“He’s a giant man with a giant coronary heart,” Bob Smiley stated of his pal and fellow Christian comic. “He actually cares about folks, and he doesn’t appear to have any ego, which is uncommon for a comic.
“Comics are likely to wrestle to search out their voice after which to search out the place they actually need to be,” added Smiley, a graduate of Abilene Christian College in Texas. “And he appears to at all times know: He desires to be on stage telling folks about Jesus. He figured that out fairly early.”
When Ridgeway was a boy, his mom owned a flea market linked to their home. That’s how he first got here throughout previous data that includes comedians equivalent to Jerry Clower, a Grand Ole Opry member and frequent visitor on the “Hee Haw” present.
However Ridgeway didn’t begin doing stand-up routines of his personal till a couple of many years later. He carried out for the primary time at a youth ministry convention in 2003.
“My buddies and I have been hanging out at Ruby Tuesday’s,” he recalled. “I used to be making all of them snigger and simply doing foolish issues on the head of the desk, they usually stated, ‘Tonight it is best to go on stage and do some comedy.’”
He did a 10-minute routine that night time.
“I’ve been booked all around the nation ever since,” he stated.
Hoss and Bea Ridgeway, his spouse of 30 years, have a 21-year-old daughter, Trenda, and are elevating a 17-year-old boy, Jamen, who got here to dwell with them a yr in the past.
Hoss Ridgeway baptizes Jamen, a teen he and his spouse, Bea, are elevating, at Turning Level Church in Franklin, Ind.
Ridgeway, a Christian Comedy Affiliation member, talked to The Christian Chronicle after his efficiency at Winterfest Manner Out West.
These highlights from the interview have been evenly edited for readability and brevity:
What do you imply while you speak about clear comedy?
“Clear comedy implies that I don’t have any subject material that’s soiled in any means. I don’t cuss or make any impolite or suggestive feedback of any type. And I simply inform household tales.
“Typically folks take a look at a clear comic or a Christian comic as somebody who’s simply up there telling dad jokes, and it’s simply not that.
“In comedy proper now, folks like Nate Bargatze and Jim Gaffigan and Brian Regan are simply clear comics now, they usually’re promoting out stadiums as a result of the mass majority of individuals actually get pleasure from non-vulgar comedy. And I do know different folks get pleasure from, for some purpose, the vulgar stuff, and we simply avoid that.”
Hoss Ridgeway performs on “The Huckabee Present” on the Trinity Broadcasting Community.
You preach numerous funerals. How is that completely different from doing stand-up comedy?
“It’s completely completely different. What folks assume is, if I’m a comic, then meaning I can’t be critical. And that couldn’t be farther from the reality.
“As humorous as I prefer to be on stage, I’m simply the other in terms of preaching and doing weddings and funerals and issues like that.
“If I do know the particular person, I inform tales which can be humorous, and it brings consolation to the households. However yesterday, I didn’t know the household, so I simply type of talked to them about how a lot God loves them, and he understands their ache.”
“What folks assume is, if I’m a comic, then meaning I can’t be critical. And that couldn’t be farther from the reality.”
Does being a minister and a comic create any conflicts for you?
“It may, in a single sense. So as to get comedy exhibits, you type of need to be half marketer. It’s a must to be posting issues and placing up brief movies and that type of factor.
“And a church household can view your social media and suppose that’s all you concentrate on, you understand? So I’ve to discover a inventive steadiness on-line.
“Throughout the day, I publish non secular issues. Then within the night, when it’s quote-unquote ‘my time’ — regardless that a minister is 24/7 — I do the comedy issues then.
“So typically you must battle the notion that every one I need to do is go elsewhere. The truth is that I’ve turned down many, many gigs which can be on Saturday night time as a result of I couldn’t get again to evangelise on Sunday.”
Hoss Ridgeway delivers a sermon at Turning Level Church in Franklin, Ind.
I’ve to ask: Is Hoss your given identify or a nickname?
“It’s a nickname given to me by my buddies at Faulkner College (a Christian college in Montgomery, Alabama, that he attended as an undergraduate).
“My actual identify, Richard Ridgeway, is just too troublesome to say, and I’ve by no means actually favored my first identify, aside from the supply of it.
“My uncle Richard Ridgeway was killed in Vietnam in 1972, and I used to be born in 1973. His identify is on the memorial wall. So I didn’t legally change it as a result of I’m nonetheless making an attempt to honor my father’s brother, my uncle.”
What else do you suppose could be attention-grabbing?
“One factor that I believe is essential to me is to stay grounded — as an individual who’s making an attempt to observe Christ — and to strive to not make life all about me.
“So each time I’ve a giant factor come alongside, I guarantee that I discover somebody in my life and thank them for his or her affect in my life.
“So once I was on my option to Dry Bar Comedy (in Provo, Utah) to report that particular — which was one in all my targets and a bucket listing factor — I will need to have despatched 5 – 6 emails from the aircraft, saying, ‘That is what I’m doing this week, however I couldn’t have been this particular person with out your assist.’”
BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Ross writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Faith Unplugged, the place this piece initially appeared. Attain him at [email protected].
