Charles Ringma, was the founder and first director of Teen Challenge in Australia, in which position he developed drop-in centers, services for homeless youth, counselling programs, and therapeutic Christian communities for clients with drug dependencies. He took his BD at the Reformed Theological College, Geelong, and did his BA, MLitSt, and PhD at the University of Queensland. Also during that time, he was a consultant to government and community-based programs and was a clinical teacher in the Medical School, University of Queensland, specializing in social medicine. In 1970, through Rev. Ian Alcorn (Director-General of LifeLine), Ringma (at that time involved in street outreach to the homeless, drug users and prostitutes) obtained funding to travel overseas to study the drug problem in England, the USA and Europe. He spent four months in Teen Challenge Centres in Philadelphia, New York, Long Beach, Rehresburg, Harrisburg, Los Angeles and San Francisco. On his return from the USA in September 1971, the first few months were spent in conducting meetings in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, before commencing the first Teen Challenge in Brisbane. Prior to moving to Regent College, Vancouver, in 1998, he served on the faculty of Asian Theological Seminary in the Philippines for six years. As one of the relatively small number from the reformed background to encounter charismatic renewal, Ringma was a radical voice in the 1970s and 1980s, calling for ‘the church [to] become a diverse movement of grassroots groups structured for empowerment, responsibility and mission and devoid of the institutional trappings that presently hamper its liberation' (pp. Catch the Wind, 178,179) His two imperatives were: 'Empower the church's members!' and 'De-institutionalize the church's structures!' Ringma notes that "In the desire to make the church safe, Christians have eliminated the critic and the prophet. As a consequence, the church is bland and irrelevant. ... Change is always necessary lest things stagnate. Therefore, the power of the question lies in its ability to move us beyond the present into new ways of being and acting." (Resist the Powers with Jacques Ellul). The range of his influences – David Wilkerson, Catholic Spirituality, Jesus People, etc – is evident in his restorationist emphases and his long argument for the poor and marginalised of the world. (He sits on the Board of Servants to Asia’s Poor, and acts for such agencies as the Onesimo Foundation in the Philippines)
He and his wife Rita are part of the neighbourhood ministry of Grandview Calvary Baptist Church in East Vancouver and have four children and four grandchildren. His books include: Catch the Wind: The Shape of the Church to Come and Our Place in it; Cry Freedom with voices from the Third World; Dare To Journey with Henri Nouwen; Life In Full Stride; Resist the Powers with Jacques Ellul. In addition, he has written extensively about youth culture and social responses. (e.g. 'Perspectives on a journey to independent living', Charles Ringma, Stephen Jeanneret and Chris Brown’, Youth Studies Australia, 1993v.12 n.1 p51.)

Quite apart from his writings, his influence has been through modelling and teaching. Even before formal establishment of Teen Challenge, he had people in need living in his home and with his family, and this fed naturally into an interest in the community emphases of Charismatic renewal. “The most difficult were not drug addicts or prostitutes but those with major psychiatric disturbances.” Inspired by Mother Theresa in Calcutta, he and his wife developed a theology of hospitality which supported the continuous flow of people through his life. ‘What we must keep in focus is that we lack credibility when we pontificate on the big issues but never become practically involved with individuals and their needs.’ (Charles Ringma, ‘Lower the drawbridge: bring social justice home,’ Renewal Journal #3 (94:1), Brisbane, Australia, pp. 39.)