Meet the pastoral Team

At Ridgeland our heart beats for Henrietta. Driven by a mission to love God with everything and to love people well, we’ve built a church where faith seamlessly blends into daily life. We’re passionate about forging deep, lasting relationships, immersed in a community that truly knows and cares for you.

Fritz is our Lead Pastor and is known for his caring pastoral heart. Fritz is very relational, loves to share joy, and is an excellent communicator. Fritz is married to Nancy and they have 4 children Ben, Caleb, Chloe, and Grace

READ FRITZ'S TESTIMONY

Fritz's Testimony

I have fallen into a deep love.

That’s ironic, because before Jesus Christ came into my life I knew so little about love that I didn’t even know what I didn’t know. I was astonishingly empty and yet perfectly ignorant of what I was missing. I felt no need of God and perceived no “God-sized hole” in my life.

As a 10th-grader I’d completed confirmation class and mouthed the official words, so technically I was a Christian already. I mean, what is there to being a Christian but going to church and being reasonably moral? But my older brother, who’d accepted Christ a year earlier, told me that wasn’t enough. Faith had to be personal. This made about as much sense to me as describing the scent of lilacs to an Eskimo. But over a period of several months he talked me through The Four Spiritual Laws and patiently countered my knee-jerk objections. To be honest, I found his conviction a bit irritating. So I started reading the bible in order to more knowledgeably shoot down his arguments.

I distinctly remember sitting on my red velvet bedcover at age 15 and reading Romans 3:23: all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God... and I felt a slight “ping” as I saw the obvious truth of this. I read on: but they are justified by his grace as a free gift. Another ping. Since we couldn’t earn God’s favor, Jesus had to do it for us. It just seemed logical. So, knowing I was crossing a line, I prayed to God. I admitted my sinfulness and accepted his grace in Jesus Christ.

And nothing happened. No wave of peace; no spiritual connection; no welling up of hope in my life. Seemingly nothing changed.

But everything changed. I just couldn’t see it yet.

My new faith did not improve my moral life. I wrestled briefly with morals, lost,and gave up. I attended worship and even liked it, but I was in that stage of paradox: believing, but still largely unchanged and uncommitted. Now that I’ve been a pastor for 20 years I see how it’s possible to come to Christ as a moral mess, stay a moral mess for a good long time, and not even be really bothered by it. Well, that was me. I was still quite dead inside. I was insensible to the ways I grieved the Holy Spirit and missed out on the blessings he wanted to give me.

Something happened in college to awaken my dead spirit. I began to be aware that I was... unhappy. Me, unhappy? Unthinkable. But it persisted for years. My first real experience of my own heart was the revelation that I was not just unhappy, but desperately unhappy, and lonely. Whereas before I’d been popular and successful, now I felt so awkward all the time, like I was never at home in my body. And I couldn’t connect with anyone – I didn’t know how to be in the room with people. I also slowly became aware that I was furious. I’d always been able to put my family’s alcoholism and abuse in a box on the shelf, but it felt more and more like I was running and something was gaining on me. It was pain. I preferred the old deadness, but I couldn’t go back to it. I was losing my grip.

John Calvin said that we cannot seriously aspire to God without first being seriously displeased with ourselves. I understand that now. I felt the depth of my brokenness for the first time and I was seriously displeased with myself.

It was Jesus who led me to this place of desperation, and I love him for it. Through the church and its pastor, Coleman Brown, Jesus broke into me. Past my oblivious intellect in into me. He unfolded a me I never knew: a me that was broken, lonely, inept – yet more real and alive than I ever knew was possible. Over months and years, he also showed me himself. Savior. Uncompromising Judge. Passionate Lord of a kingdom of crazy love. Jesus became real to me.

It’s the advent of love in a person’s life that brings change. Not morality, not doctrine, but love. And it must come through Jesus, because he is love and he alone can reach inside us.

I began to catch fire. I sold most of what I had and moved into inner-city Rochester to do mission work as a full-time volunteer. I didn’t have the wisdom to understand it then, but I see now Jesus was calling me to poverty and to the poor. Odd, right? But somehow accepting my own inner poverty drew me to others who were suffering. This was a thrilling period of growth for me. I lived in a church that was bursting with grace and innovation, and for the first time I was ready to receive the special gift God gives to serious believers: community. I felt like a Christian radical. One who sought first the kingdom of God – and found it.

My ambition is to never stop being a radical Christian. You don’t just find the kingdom once and stay there; you have to keep following where Jesus leads. He led me into marriage (such a blessing) and four children (more tremendous blessing) and into ministry and love for his Church. I lived in intentional community, started an inner- city church, ran a hospice program, led several congregations, and have done many other things. Most were hard, and some were mistakes; but my life verse is Seek first the kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33) for a reason: because his kingdom is always the next frontier of my life, and that’s where the joy, grace, friendship, and power is.

READ BRIAN'S TESTIMONY

Brian's Testimony

I was raised in a Christian household that was dedicated to the faith. My parents were active in church, and for as long as I can remember, I had a genuine desire to follow the Lord.

I also grew up as a fan of the original Star Wars trilogy. I probably saw each movie 20 times and had all the lines memorized, including Han Solo’s particular response in The Empire Strikes Back about where he would see someone if his Tauntaun froze before he reached the first marker while searching for Luke Skywalker. I made the mistake of quoting that passage one day and found out that place was not somewhere I wanted to go, and certainly not anywhere I wanted anyone else to go.

Then one day my sister (ok... full disclosure, she was like 7 at the time) got mad at me and told me that’s where I was going to go, and by goodness I made sure that was never going to happen. From about that time on, the Bible became my best friend.

Childhood isn’t always easy. Growing up around peers has a way of leaving scars that sometimes do not heal easily, and many people quietly carry those wounds while trying to make the best out of life. I think most of us realize from a young age that kids lacking maturity can be cruel, only to later feel stupid and regretful about it. I think more of us pretended to come out unscathed than actually did.

By the time I reached high school, I was not happy. I had a deep sense of loneliness, and my retreat became what was, looking back, one of the greatest gifts I ever received: a Good News Bible from Mom—the one with the simple line art illustrations that somehow compelled me to read the stories behind them.

One day, during what could best be described as a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, I shut myself in my room and opened my Bible. I came to the image of Jesus on the cross and wanted to know more. He had done nothing wrong, yet one thief mocked Him while the other asked Jesus to remember him when He came into His kingdom.

That struck me deeply. Circling back to that place we referred to back then as h-e-double-hockey-sticks, I realized the thief had nothing to stand on. He was a criminal dying on a cross with no good works to point to and no claim that he was worthy. In fact, he openly admitted he was not. Yet his plea for remembrance became his salvation in those final hours of excruciating pain.

At that moment, I understood the simplicity of the gospel and received Christ.

Later, a friend explained the way of God to me more perfectly, and many things clicked into place. I became active in church life, and as freshmen in high school, my friends and I joined Child Evangelism Fellowship. We spent several summers holding five-day backyard Bible clubs, and that became the beginning of ministry for me.

I became involved in visitation ministry, music, and eventually had my first opportunity to preach at sixteen years old. Later I served as a visitation leader. During college, my best friend and I started a small group for people our age that eventually grew into a college and career ministry. We held “Super Saturdays,” and ministry simply became a way of life for me through small group leadership, discipleship, and later serving as Director of Christian Education, Sunday School teacher, and Youth Ministry Director.

As the Family Pastor at Ridgeland, my goal is to help impart a strong and lasting faith in our children and families—the kind that comes through authentic, relational discipleship. To me, ministry is not just about teaching a Sunday lesson, but about leaving a lasting spiritual impact on the lives of kids and families through genuine relationships, biblical truth, and walking alongside them through life. Ultimately, I believe the lives of the younger generation are shaped not merely by the words we say, but by the example of faith they see lived out before them.

Much of my philosophy of ministry was shaped by faithful people who simply walked alongside me growing up. They did not always have every answer, but they consistently cared, invested in my life, and pointed me toward Christ.

My prayer is that Ridgeland would always be a place where children, students, and families can grow in their faith, build genuine relationships, and find people who will walk alongside them in their journey with Christ.