Steve Ridgway has been a Washington state resident for most of his life. Steve attended Pacific Lutheran University where he was honored on football All-American teams for three of his four years. He is a member of the PLU Athletic Hall of Fame and the Tacoma Pierce County Athletic Hall of Fame. As the Executive Director of the Northwest Network Foundation, Steve “
mentors emerging and existing leaders
.” He travels extensively and has spoken to groups as large as 60,000, but his greater focus is “
the one.
” Over the course of his life he has run a political campaign and taught in the public school system. Steve has been the chaplain of a major college football program, traveled in lands ravaged by war and famine, and led a major non-profit as their (interim) President and CEO.
Steve is a connector of people and his greatest passion is seeing people connect to Jesus.
Steve believes that the message of Jesus is an unsafe message full of hope and promise for unsafe places. With what is happening around the world and, now, in our own back yard, how do we respond to our enemies? How do we embrace those who would appear to be our enemies?
It is said that most of life is about just showing up. I show up… My life and my work are about presence. It is about being present in other’s lives and being acutely aware of my surroundings. Whether it is standing on a street corner, flying on an airplane or being in the “hard and hostile places” with a gun pointed at my head, I am present and looking for how I should be engaged in other’s lives. All that I do is Gospel driven in the hopes that others would see that Jesus is worth it; He is enough.
