The Ralph Moore Podcast

How did a small church planting conference become one of the most influential gatherings for church planters in America?

Ralph Moore continues his conversation with Todd Wilson, exploring the unlikely origins of Exponential, his partnership with Dave Ferguson, and the relationships that helped accelerate the church planting movement. Todd also explains why he eventually began questioning the prevailing approach to church growth and why he launched Multipliers to help churches move beyond addition toward genuine multiplication.

Resources:

• Multipliers
• Todd's book, How Did We Get Here?

Before co-founding Exponential, Todd Wilson had a successful career as a nuclear engineer working with the U.S. Navy. So how did he end up dedicating his life to church planting?

In the first of four conversations, Ralph Moore talks with Todd about his journey to faith, the surprising influence of a small church, and the difficult decision to leave a promising career for full-time ministry. Todd shares how God guided him through uncertainty, unexpected opportunities, and financial sacrifices that ultimately set the stage for decades of Kingdom impact.

Resources:

• Todd's book, How Did We Get Here?

In this fourth and final podcast built on the Neil Cole interview we watch Paul as he matures over five journeys—this is about spiritual formation and missional results.

While the first missionary journey finds him leaving churches without much leadership, the second reflects the importance of raising leaders from the harvest.

On the third trip, he explodes with effectiveness as he stays in one place, teaching daily in the school of Tyrannus—archaeology reveals 20 churches in Asia Minor that could trace roots to Paul in Ephesus.

Few recognize the fourth journey as a missionary outing, but it was in chains that he spoke to men and women of great influence. He changed the course of human history through his efforts under house arrest in Rome.

The fifth journey is after the first imprisonment and at its conclusion in death.

Apparently, just prior to execution, he wrote to Timothy, “You then, my son in faith, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.”

While we treasure those words, we seldom think of arrest and final imprisonment as an afterglow to a life well lived.

We talked about how spiritual formation can be simultaneously jarring and positive. This was an apt conclusion to a great interview.

Neil is accessible and willing to connect. You could hookup via social media or [email protected].

This third portion of the Neil Cole interview will cause you pain.

He starts with his early life and then deep dives into a time when God put him on a shelf with no ministry outlet. Ignored by churches, he couldn’t even get a job at Walmart.

Neil finally found income as a driver for Lyft and Uber. That, along with his wife’s salary as a teacher in a public school system, met their needs.

What painfully amazed me was his heart for God during those dark days. Where I would have reacted in anger, he did so with hope and even joy.

Eventually, we got into a fruitful discussion about getting our “stuff” from the Holy Spirit rather than copying others. The upshot is that even Paul modeled his teaching after Stephen during his first journey but grew past imitation in later years.

Neil is accessible and willing to connect. You could hookup via social media or [email protected].

In part two of my interview with Neil Cole, we get into the guts of rapid church growth through the multiplication of tiny disciplemaking entities.

Neil begins to unpack his desert years where he went from life as a prolific author and speaker to absolute zero. The wonder of this is how God used that time to prepare him for an explosion of ministry in the current stage of his life.

One product of life in the desert is an update and upgrade of a previous book he wrote called Journeys. The new title is Journeys: Discovering God’s Paths of Spiritual Formation Building to a Strong Finish. I recently discovered that it launched at the top of Amazon’s sales category for Christian leadership.

Better than that discovery, I’ve been reading it along with my morning devotions. I've found new courage and made several decisions as a result.

The power in the book is the synthesis of Paul’s five journeys in Acts with various statements he made in the epistles. This is history unfolded and it deeply impacted how I see myself at the current stage of my life.

Neil is accessible and willing to connect. You could hookup via social media or [email protected].

Neil is one of my favorite people, and how we met is one of my favorite stories.

He had followed me to four cities where I was teaching the same material—I thought he was a stalker until he told me what he was up to.

He brought his team to that last seminar believing in what I taught, but “…your numbers are wrong!”

After sharing lunch with his dozen friends, I was convinced that my numbers were wrong.

You’ll need to listen to the podcast to understand the numbers thing.

In this episode, we discuss everything from rapid multiplication to “adolescent rebellion” amongst disciples (Paul experienced this, too).

We get into the stuff Neil wrote in those early years and how today he’s discovering people doing what he wrote in places like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan

and even India. The story is humorous in that those people have invited Neil into their countries, not knowing that he generated the tools they’ve been using to make disciples.

Neil is accessible and willing to connect. You could hookup via social media or [email protected].

Ed Kang is the son of Korean immigrants. Growing up poor in Los Angeles he was headed for a life of crime and delinquency. That is until he met a postal employee with a vision for discipling adolescents. One man with a guitar, a Bible and a heart for kids changed a bunch of lives in what we might call a microchurch.

As a law student at the University of California at Berkeley Ed worked as a bivocational campus minister. Upon graduating he felt that the world has enough attorneys but not enough campus pastors so he stayed on. The results are a collegiate church planting network. They are currently in 38 cities with outreach to 70 campuses.

What grabbed my attention was the ease of ministry Ed describes. He says that at even the most prestigous schools freshmen are just lonely kids away from home for the first time. Away from parents, even church kids end up prey for the darker side of partying, alchohol and other influences. But, he says they are extremely open to an older person who takes an interest in them. While seniors are most effective at reaching out to freshmen, older outsiders to the school will find a hearing if they spend time around campus befriending students. This is especially true of newly enrolled students who lack the closeup guidance of parents and family.

When I asked Ed for contact information he surprised me. He replied, "We love hosting people. We love spoiling pastors and church planters. So if you're interested in visiting out here in Berkeley, or any of our other church plants, we would love to show you around and, and give you a look under the hood, in case you might consider a collegiate church planting. If you're coming to one of our campuses, we will lend you our students to set up shop quicker than you otherwise would be able to. If that's you just email me at [email protected]." If you email Ed it might be wise to mention the invitation on this podcast.

For general information visit the GracePoint website.

Ed Kang is the son of Korean immigrants. Growing up poor in Los Angeles he was headed for a life of crime and delinquency. That is until he met a postal employee with a vision for discipling adolescents. One man with a guitar, a Bible and a heart for kids changed a bunch of lives in what we might call a microchurch.

As a law student at the University of California at Berkeley Ed worked as a bivocational campus minister. Upon graduating he felt that the world has enough ttorneys but not enough campus pastors so he stayed on. The results are a collegiate church planting network. They are currently in 38 cities with outreach to 70 campuses.

What grabbed my attention was the ease of ministry Ed describes. He says that at even the most prestigous schools freshmen are just lonely kids away from home for the first time. Away from parents, even church kids end up prey for the darker side of partying, alchohol and other influences. But, he says they are extremely open to an older person who takes an interest in them. While seniors are most effective at reaching out to freshmen, older outsiders to the school will find a hearing if they spend time around campus befriending students. This is especially true of newly enrolled students who lack the closeup guidance of parents and family.

When I asked Ed for contact information he surprised me. He said, "We love hosting people. We love spoiling pastors and church planters. So if you're interested in visiting out here in Berkeley, or any of our other church plants, we would love to show you around and, and give you a look under the hood, in case you might consider a collegiate church planting. If you're coming to one of our campuses, we will lend you our students to set up shop quicker than you otherwise would be able to. If that's you just email me at [email protected]." If you email Ed it might be wise to mention the invitation on this podcast.

For general information visit the GracePoint website.

Ed Kang is the son of Korean immigrants. Growing up poor in Los Angeles he was headed for a life of crime and delinquency. That is until he met a postal employee with a vision for discipling adolescents. One man with a guitar, a Bible and a heart for kids changed a bunch of lives in what we might call a microchurch.

As a law student at the University of California at Berkeley Ed worked as a bivocational campus minister. Upon graduating he felt that the world has enough attorneys but not enough campus pastors so he stayed on. The results are a collegiate church planting network. They are currently in 38 cities with outreach to 70 campuses.

What grabbed my attention was the ease of ministry Ed describes. He says that at even the most prestigous schools freshmen are just lonely kids away from home for the first time. Away from parents, even church kids end up prey for the darker side of partying, alchohol and other influences. But, he says they are extremely open to an older person who takes an interest in them. While seniors are most effective at reaching out to freshmen, older outsiders to the school will find a hearing if they spend time around campus befriending students. This is especially true of newly enrolled students who lack the closeup guidance of parents and family.

When I asked Ed for contact information he surprised me. He replied, "We love hosting people. We love spoiling pastors and church planters. So if you're interested in visiting out here in Berkeley, or any of our other church plants, we would love to show you around and, and give you a look under the hood, in case you might consider a collegiate church planting. If you're coming to one of our campuses, we will lend you our students to set up shop quicker than you otherwise would be able to. If that's you just email me at [email protected]." If you email Ed it might be wise to mention the invitation on this podcast.

For general information visit the GracePoint website.

How do churches become multiplying churches? And what happens when sending your best people actually costs you something?

In Part 2, Ralph Moore continues his conversation with Ben Connelly, exploring why healthy churches hold their future with open hands, why permanence isn't the ultimate goal of ministry, and how sending leaders often requires sacrifice. They also discuss Exponential's Learning Communities, practical pathways toward becoming a multiplying church, and why churches of every size can play a vital role in God's mission.

Ralph closes the conversation with a heartfelt endorsement of Ben's leadership and a challenge for pastors who want to move from simply growing a church to multiplying disciples, leaders, and churches.