A Kingdom vision will be more than a vision for the growth of the church.

Ralph Moore had a simple Kingdom vision but the story of how God has used him is spectacular!

In “New to Five” Ralph wrote:

“We intentionally avoided any thought of weekend attendance numbers and just focused on disciple making.”

In case you have never heard of Ralph, he and his wife Ruby planted around 7 churches from the 1970’s in the USA, including in Hawaii. At last count, out of these churches over 2,600 churches have been planted. And they weren’t all small churches. Two of the churches Ralph planted grew under his leadership to over 2,000 in size.

Ralph tells the following incredible story of Kingdom impact in the ebook “12 Things They Should Have Told Me (Before I Planted a Church)”

“When we moved to Hawaii, our team was instructed (by the Spirit) to plant and help others plant enough churches in ten years that we would have converted one percent of the state. At that time, only four percent of the population called themselves believers. It took 11 years but touched off a movement showing 67 percent calling themselves Christ-followers just 23 years later.”

So what did the Kingdom Vision from the early days of his ministry look like?

Ralph wrote in “New to Five”:

Our 20-year goals include:

• Directly plant 30 churches.
• Infuse each church plant with church multiplication DNA.
• Establish a meaningful church multiplication presence in three countries other than our own.”

I think the missional DNA in Ralph’s churches was also in Ralph. When he was in college, Ralph read entirely through the Book of Acts five times a week for a year. This undoubtedly shaped Ralph and his ministry..

Ralph and Ruby are an amazing example of disciple making and church planting multiplication! You can read about their story in “Let Go of the Ring”

Question for reflection:

What vision beyond attendance do you have?

Tim O’Neill
National Leader, Exponential Australia