Weekend Plug-in 🔌

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FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Hoss Ridgeway flashed a mischievous smile as he stepped onstage at a Christian youth conference.

An urgent tone to his voice, the 6-foot-4 speaker with bright red shoes and a jacket featuring a Buc-ee’s logo (IYKYK) asked the teens to take out their Bibles.

“I’m kidding,” he added with a chuckle. “I’m doing comedy. Let’s have fun. How about that?”

The Friday night crowd of 250 students and adult sponsors cheered to show its approval.

Ridgeway, a 51-year-old preacher and stand-up comedian, flew to Flagstaff last week from his home state of Indiana. 

He traveled 1,600 miles to provide entertainment at a regional event called Winterfest Way Out West, which mixes praise and worship with plenty of time for laughter.

“When I left Indianapolis this morning, it was 9 degrees,” Ridgeway told the audience of church youth groups, mainly from Arizona, California and New Mexico. “And I’m thinking, ‘Thank you, Lord, for sending me to Arizona in the desert.’”

He paused just briefly as giggles echoed through the hotel ballroom in this mountain community, 150 miles north of Phoenix.

“They lied to y’all,” he teased, not needing to mention Flagstaff’s low temperature of 5 degrees Fahrenheit that day or the nearby snow-tubing park. “And I was packing sandals and shorts and scorpion repellent. It was awesome.

“I got here, and it’s just ice,” he quipped. “I’m like, ‘I’m home.’”

He’s certainly at home in front of a crowd, whether preaching or performing.

Ridgeway serves as the senior minister for Turning Point Church, a Franklin, Indiana, congregation with Restoration Movement roots. 

Meanwhile, his clean comedy routines have taken him to churches and comedy clubs — not to mention cruise ships — in 40 states as well as the Dominican Republic and Uganda.

He has appeared on “The Huckabee Show,” done a Dry Bar Comedy special and recorded a segment that will air on the Amazon Prime series “Killer Beaz Presents …”

Despite his penchant for making people laugh, Ridgeway insists he can be serious when it’s time to preach God’s word or honor the dearly departed.

Members of his congregation, which averages Sunday attendance of about 160, agree — to an extent.

“I doubt he could deliver a sermon without injecting some humor,” said Loretta Wray, who attends Turning Point Church with her husband, Steve. 

“I think preachers and comedians have a couple things in common,” she added. “Both are trying to deliver their message in a way that gets people to come to a realization. Hoss’ comedy is an art form he uses to get his point across in a sermon.”

Whether quoting the Bible or telling jokes, Ridgeway — who earned a master’s degree in practical theology from Ohio Christian University — finds his identity in Jesus, Wray said.

“That’s where I think his authenticity comes from,” she said.

His love for Christ and comedy stretches back decades to his childhood, when he moved often as the son of a Navy sailor who later became a minister.

“He is a big guy with a big heart,” Bob Smiley said of his friend and fellow Christian comedian. “He truly cares about people, and he doesn’t seem to have any ego, which is rare for a comedian.

“Comics tend to struggle to find their voice and then to find where they really want to be,” Smiley added. “And he seems to always know: He wants to be on stage telling people about Jesus. He figured that out pretty early.”

When Ridgeway was a boy, his mother owned a flea market connected to their house. That’s how he first came across old records featuring comedians such as Jerry Clower, a Grand Ole Opry member and frequent guest on the “Hee Haw” show.

But Ridgeway didn’t start doing stand-up routines of his own until a few decades later. He performed for the first time at a youth ministry conference in 2003.

“My friends and I were hanging out at Ruby Tuesday’s,” he recalled. “I was making all of them laugh and just doing silly things at the head of the table, and they said, ‘Tonight you should go on stage and do some comedy.’”

He did a 10-minute routine that night.

“I’ve been booked all over the country ever since,” he said.

Hoss and Bea Ridgeway, his wife of 30 years, have a 21-year-old daughter, Trenda, and are raising a 17-year-old boy, Jamen, who came to live with them a year ago.

Ridgeway, a Christian Comedy Association member, talked to Religion Unplugged after his performance at Winterfest Way Out West. 

These highlights from the interview have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity:

What do you mean when you talk about clean comedy?

“Clean comedy means that I don’t have any subject matter that is dirty in any way. I don’t cuss or make any rude or suggestive comments of any kind. And I just tell family stories.

“Sometimes people look at a clean comedian or a Christian comedian as someone who’s just up there telling dad jokes, and it’s just not that.

“In comedy right now, people like Nate Bargatze and Jim Gaffigan and Brian Regan are just clean comics now, and they’re selling out stadiums because the mass majority of people really enjoy non-vulgar comedy. And I know other people enjoy, for some reason, the vulgar stuff, and we just stay away from that.”

You preach a lot of funerals. How is that different from doing stand-up comedy?

“It’s totally different. What people assume is, if I’m a comedian, then that means I can’t be serious. And that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“As funny as I like to be on stage, I’m just the opposite when it comes to preaching and doing weddings and funerals and things like that.

“If I know the person, I tell stories that are funny, and it brings comfort to the families. But yesterday, I didn’t know the family, so I just kind of talked to them about how much God loves them, and he understands their pain.”

Does being a minister and a comedian create any conflicts for you?

“It can, in one sense. In order to get comedy shows, you kind of have to be part marketer. You have to be posting things and putting up short videos and that kind of thing.

“And a church family can view your social media and think that’s all you think about, you know? So I have to find a creative balance online.

“During the day, I post spiritual things. Then in the evening, when it’s quote-unquote ‘my time’ — even though a minister is 24/7 — I do the comedy things then. 

“So sometimes you have to battle the perception that all I want to do is go somewhere else. The reality is that I’ve turned down many, many gigs that are on Saturday night because I couldn’t get back to preach on Sunday.”

I have to ask: Is Hoss your given name or a nickname?

“It’s a nickname given to me by my friends at Faulkner University (a Christian university in Montgomery, Alabama, that he attended as an undergraduate). 

“My real name, Richard Ridgeway, is too difficult to say, and I’ve never really liked my first name, except for the source of it. 

“My uncle Richard Ridgeway was killed in Vietnam in 1972, and I was born in 1973. His name is on the memorial wall. So I didn’t legally change it because I’m still trying to honor my father’s brother, my uncle.” 

What else do you think would be interesting?

“One thing that I think is important to me is to remain grounded — as a person who is trying to follow Christ — and to try not to make life all about me.

“So every time I have a big thing come along, I make sure that I find someone in my life and thank them for their impact in my life. 

“So when I was on my way to Dry Bar Comedy (in Provo, Utah) to record that special — which was one of my goals and a bucket list thing — I must have sent five or six emails from the plane, saying, ‘This is what I’m doing this week, but I couldn’t have been this person without your help.’”

Inside The Godbeat

As expected, President Donald Trump’s return to the White House has reignited the debate over immigration policy among people of faith.

Among the stories that caught my attention this week:

• “U.S. bishops have stepped gingerly into a disagreement with the Catholic vice president, which follows previous conflict between President Donald Trump and Pope Francis,” Washington Post religion writer Michelle Boorstein reports.

• “Empathy for immigrants sounds like Christianity 101. Here's why some say it's a sin,” according to Religion New Service’s Bob Smietana.

• In Ohio, “Some of Springfield’s estimated 15,000 Haitians are seeking solace and divine intervention in their churches or at shops that sell spiritual products. Community leaders say many are overwhelmed by fears Trump will end or let expire the Temporary Protected Status program that allows them to remain in the U.S. legally,” Associated Press religion journalists Luis Andres Henao and Jessie Wardarski write.

The Final Plug

My Christian Chronicle colleague Audrey Jackson traveled to Nigeria, where she reported on Christians and Muslims serving children orphaned by terror.

Check out her compelling story and photos.

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 18 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.