The Ralph Moore Podcast

This is part two of a four-part podcast with deep interest to me. My friend John Honold and I interviewed Kenneth Makuakane, a third-generation Hope Chapel Kaneohe Bay pastor.  He's an award-winning Waikiki entertainer concurrently leading the largest Hawaiian congregation in the state. The original missionaries planted the church. As the story unfolds, I discipled John Honold, who multiplied several churches and leads a string of micro churches today. John now coaches Ken, whom he discipled decades ago. And Ken is plowing ground that lay fallow until his arrival. The church is growing, and elderly people often engage with street kids.  Most ethnic Hawaiians, whether they go to church or not, call Kawaiaha'o Church their home. This is significant as it links the first spiritual awakening in the Kingdom of Hawaii to the most recent in the State of Hawaii. The congregation is steeped in tradition as it became the church home to the kings and queens of ancient Hawaii. Beginning with the original New England-born missionaries in the early 1700s, Hawaii experienced four church-planting movements. In terms of per capita penetration, it remains the most successful awakening in human history. The second planted churches among Japanese Americans. Thousands of Japanese immigrated to Hawaii to work in sugar plantations, and many came to Christ. Takie Okamura, the innovator God used to drive that awakening planted what we would call microchurches in the sugar cane camps. He ran a Japanese-language newspaper and invented language schools for evangelism. He also planted Makiki Christian Church which prevails today.  From the 1940s to the early 1980s or late 1970s, church multiplication centered on Olivet Baptist Church, which launched more than 40 congregations.  My friends and I showed up in 1983, thirty of us including children. We planted and multiplied 69 churches in the Hope Chapel arena in about 27 years. Shortly after our arrival Wayne Cordeiro launched the New Hope movement, which is responsible for another 69 congregations during those same years. Theirs are often larger than ours, but we were privileged to send a little more than 100 people to help launch New Hope Oahu, including their long-serving first worship band.  The greater excitement of the fourth awakening comes via hundreds of small churches planted after the example of the larger networks. These are mostly independent congregations. At one point, every public school in the state (650+) hosted at least one or more congregations. None started from the more noticeable movements.  This podcast is significant because Ken's role links the original spiritual awakening with the most recent.  I hope it blesses you as it has me. And I hope you'll join us for all four installments of this podcast. If you need more information, you can learn about the church at https://kawaiahaochurch.com or connect with Ken via email.

This is part one of a four-part podcast with deep interest to me. My friend John Honold and I interviewed Kenneth Makuakane, a third-generation Hope Chapel Kaneohe Bay pastor.  He's an award-winning Waikiki entertainer concurrently leading the largest Hawaiian congregation in the state. The original missionaries planted the church. As the story unfolds, I discipled John Honold, who multiplied several churches and leads a string of micro churches today. John now coaches Ken, whom he discipled decades ago. And Ken is plowing ground that lay fallow until his arrival. The church is growing, and elderly people often engage with street kids.  Most ethnic Hawaiians, whether they go to church or not, call Kawaiaha'o Church their home. This is significant as it links the first spiritual awakening in the Kingdom of Hawaii to the most recent in the State of Hawaii. The congregation is steeped in tradition as it became the church home to the kings and queens of ancient Hawaii. Beginning with the original New England-born missionaries in the early 1700s, Hawaii experienced four church-planting movements. In terms of per capita penetration, it remains the most successful awakening in human history. The second planted churches among Japanese Americans. Thousands of Japanese immigrated to Hawaii to work in sugar plantations, and many came to Christ. Takie Okamura, the innovator God used to drive that awakening planted what we would call microchurches in the sugar cane camps. He ran a Japanese-language newspaper and invented language schools for evangelism. He also planted Makiki Christian Church which prevails today.  From the 1940s to the early 1980s or late 1970s, church multiplication centered on Olivet Baptist Church, which launched more than 40 congregations.  My friends and I showed up in 1983, thirty of us including children. We planted and multiplied 69 churches in the Hope Chapel arena in about 27 years. Shortly after our arrival Wayne Cordeiro launched the New Hope movement, which is responsible for another 69 congregations during those same years. Theirs are often larger than ours, but we were privileged to send a little more than 100 people to help launch New Hope Oahu, including their long-serving first worship band.  The greater excitement of the fourth awakening comes via hundreds of small churches planted after the example of the larger networks. These are mostly independent congregations. At one point, every public school in the state (650+) hosted at least one or more congregations. None started from the more noticeable movements.  This podcast is significant because Ken's role links the original spiritual awakening with the most recent.  I hope it blesses you as it has me. And I hope you'll join us for all four installments of this podcast. If you need more information, you can learn about the church at https://kawaiahaochurch.com or connect with Ken via email.

Mike is a scrappy guy. He left a job as a financial advisor to pastor a very old congregation in Leighton, Pennsylvania. Having helped breathe new life into the congregation, he’s exploring creative avenues that are sure to interest you. He leads two English language services in a tiny building and planted a Spanish language service because he saw a need though no one in the church spoke Spanish at the time. While the 130-year-old congregation snowballs with growth, they’ve planted a separate online church which has planted a brick and mortar church hundreds of miles away in Georgia and another in India. The online church is not to be confused with its streaming video from the home base. The Echo Online Campus exists to create a fully digital congregation whereby people from across the country and the world join others via emerging technology. The digital campus mixes virtual reality, Discord, Zoom and a mixed salad of other apps and gadgets to reach people. That congregation is now nearly half the size of the Pennsylvania location and stretches across several states and two different countries. The operation utilize an “apprentice maker” discipling model developed locally and soon to appear in a book by Michael. On another front, Michael currently presses to generate passive income enabling him to return most of his salary to the church. The latest project is an internet app about to go live. To be sure, these people are building the plane as they fly it. If you’re inventive and working in the digital space, you’ll be challenged and encouraged by pure inventiveness in this podcast. For more information, contact mike at peoplesec@gmail.com. The website is https://www.peoplesecchurch.com/.BTW, don't forget to check the free online courses at ralphmoore.net.  

 He left a job as a financial advisor to pastor a very old congregation in Leighton, Pennsylvania. Having helped breathe new life into the congregation, he’s exploring creative avenues that are sure to interest you. He leads two English language services in a tiny building and planted a Spanish language service because he saw a need though no one in the church spoke Spanish at the time. While the 130-year-old congregation snowballs with growth, they’ve planted a separate online church which has planted a brick and mortar church hundreds of miles away in Georgia and another in India. The online church is not to be confused with its streaming video from the home base. The Echo Online Campus exists to create a fully digital congregation whereby people from across the country and the world join others via emerging technology. The digital campus mixes virtual reality, Discord, Zoom and a mixed salad of other apps and gadgets to reach people. That congregation is now nearly half the size of the Pennsylvania location and stretches across several states and two different countries. The operation utilize an “apprentice maker” discipling model developed locally and soon to appear in a book by Michael. On another front, Michael currently presses to generate passive income enabling him to return most of his salary to the church. The latest project is an internet app about to go live. To be sure, these people are building the plane as they fly it. If you’re inventive and working in the digital space, you’ll be challenged and encouraged by pure inventiveness in this podcast. For more information, contact mike at peoplesec@gmail.com. The website is https://www.peoplesecchurch.com/.BTW, don't forget to check the free online courses at ralphmoore.net.

Mike is a scrappy guy. He left a job as a financial advisor to pastor a very old congregation in Leighton, Pennsylvania. Having helped breathe new life into the congregation, he’s exploring creative avenues that are sure to interest you. He leads two English language services in a tiny building and planted a Spanish language service because he saw a need though no one in the church spoke Spanish at the time. While the 130-year-old congregation snowballs with growth, they’ve planted a separate online church which has planted a brick and mortar church hundreds of miles away in Georgia and another in India. The online church is not to be confused with its streaming video from the home base. The Echo Online Campus exists to create a fully digital congregation whereby people from across the country and the world join others via emerging technology. The digital campus mixes virtual reality, Discord, Zoom and a mixed salad of other apps and gadgets to reach people. That congregation is now nearly half the size of the Pennsylvania location and stretches across several states and two different countries. The operation utilize an “apprentice maker” discipling model developed locally and soon to appear in a book by Michael. On another front, Michael currently presses to generate passive income enabling him to return most of his salary to the church. The latest project is an internet app about to go live. To be sure, these people are building the plane as they fly it. If you’re inventive and working in the digital space, you’ll be challenged and encouraged by pure inventiveness in this podcast.For more information, contact mike at PeoplesEC@gmail.com. The website is https://www.peoplesecchurch.com/. BTW, don't forget to check the free online courses at ralphmoore.net.

This podcast is personal in a very real way. John Honold has been a close friend for just under four decades.I met him as a cocky, even arrogant, 20-year-old who informed me, “I hope you don’t mind, but I knock off your sermons each Thursday under a tree at Windward Community College.”He was reteaching my Sunday messages in a microchurch he’d started on campus. I responded, “Keep it up, and you’ll become our college pastor.” He did. And he married Brenda Ching, one of the original 30 people to move from California to plant the church.After serving as College Pastor, Youth Pastor and our Exec for over a decade, we launched him to plant a Hope Chapel in Oahu’s “Second City,” Kapolei. It was a tossup as to which of us should plant the new church—me with a built-in audience from our daily radio broadcasts or John, who might reach a younger audience. He won the coin toss, and soon 700+ people met in various borrowed spaces. They multiplied new congregations from that base in Hawaii, Okinawa, Thailand and The Philippines.This episode is about church multiplication, an enduring friendship and how to follow the Holy Spirit in a way that parallels building sidewalks where people trample the grass on a college campus.Today John leads a prevailing model church (which both shrunk and grew after COVID) that operates as a hub for twelve microchurches—and he’s paid a full-time salary to boot. Journey Church Network Hawaii has cracked the code for mixing what worked in the past with the future many envision.Did I mention that they support ministries in Okinawa, Mainland Japan and across the African Continent? John is also consulting with the oldest, and perhaps most famous, church that started in the “Kingdom of Hawaii.” They’re bringing back the fire of the original vision to cover the islands with the gospel.If you’re trying to understand the implications of microchurch on the congregation you lead, this will aid your quest. Besides, it gives good insight into the values that drive this podcast and have driven me for a long time. You can connect with John at pastorjohn@journeychurchhawaii.org or https://journeychurchhawaii.org.

This podcast is personal in a very real way. John Honold has been a close friend for just under four decades.I met him as a cocky, even arrogant, 20-year-old who informed me, “I hope you don’t mind, but I knock off your sermons each Thursday under a tree at Windward Community College.”He was reteaching my Sunday messages in a microchurch he’d started on campus. I responded, “Keep it up, and you’ll become our college pastor.” He did. And he married Brenda Ching, one of the original 30 people to move from California to plant the church.After serving as College Pastor, Youth Pastor and our Exec for over a decade, we launched him to plant a Hope Chapel in Oahu’s “Second City,” Kapolei. It was a tossup as to which of us should plant the new church—me with a built-in audience from our daily radio broadcasts or John, who might reach a younger audience. He won the coin toss, and soon 700+ people met in various borrowed spaces. They multiplied new congregations from that base in Hawaii, Okinawa, Thailand and The Philippines.This episode is about church multiplication, an enduring friendship and how to follow the Holy Spirit in a way that parallels building sidewalks where people trample the grass on a college campus.Today John leads a prevailing model church (which both shrunk and grew after COVID) that operates as a hub for twelve microchurches—and he’s paid a full-time salary to boot. Journey Church Network Hawaii has cracked the code for mixing what worked in the past with the future many envision.Did I mention that they support ministries in Okinawa, Mainland Japan and across the African Continent? John is also consulting with the oldest, and perhaps most famous, church that started in the “Kingdom of Hawaii.” They’re bringing back the fire of the original vision to cover the islands with the gospel.If you’re trying to understand the implications of microchurch on the congregation you lead, this will aid your quest. Besides, it gives good insight into the values that drive this podcast and have driven me for a long time. You can connect with John at pastorjohn@journeychurchhawaii.org or https://journeychurchhawaii.org.

This podcast is personal in a very real way. John Honold has been a close friend for just under four decades.I met him as a cocky, even arrogant, 20-year-old who informed me, “I hope you don’t mind, but I knock off your sermons each Thursday under a tree at Windward Community College.”He was reteaching my Sunday messages in a microchurch he’d started on campus. I responded, “Keep it up, and you’ll become our college pastor.” He did. And he married Brenda Ching, one of the original 30 people to move from California to plant the church.After serving as College Pastor, Youth Pastor and our Exec for over a decade, we launched him to plant a Hope Chapel in Oahu’s “Second City,” Kapolei. It was a tossup as to which of us should plant the new church—me with a built-in audience from our daily radio broadcasts or John, who might reach a younger audience. He won the coin toss, and soon 700+ people met in various borrowed spaces. They multiplied new congregations from that base in Hawaii, Okinawa, Thailand and The Philippines.This episode is about church multiplication, an enduring friendship and how to follow the Holy Spirit in a way that parallels building sidewalks where people trample the grass on a college campus.Today John leads a prevailing model church (which both shrunk and grew after COVID) that operates as a hub for twelve microchurches—and he’s paid a full-time salary to boot. Journey Church Network Hawaii has cracked the code for mixing what worked in the past with the future many envision.Did I mention that they support ministries in Okinawa, Mainland Japan and across the African Continent? John is also consulting with the oldest, and perhaps most famous, church that started in the “Kingdom of Hawaii.” They’re bringing back the fire of the original vision to cover the islands with the gospel.If you’re trying to understand the implications of microchurch on the congregation you lead, this will aid your quest. Besides, it gives good insight into the values and tricks that drive this podcast and have driven me for a long time. You can connect with John at pastorjohn@journeychurchhawaii.org or https://journeychurchhawaii.org.

At age 20, Jeff Fischer is the youngest planter we ever launched. He’s now busy planting a strong Gen Z church at age 63. The new church is a prevailing model/microchurch hybrid in a town with 40,000 college students.A young surfer, he caught waves on Sundays and then finished the day in our evening services in Hermosa Beach. He brought friends to the beach and church. When they ran out of cars to haul his evangelistic fruit, he begged us to plant a church for them. We turned the tables and assigned him the task. Dale Yancy was the salaried “babysitter,” while Jeff was the bivocational planter. Not too different from Peter and John aiding Philip in Samaria or Barnabas nurturing Saul.Decades and several church multiplications later, Jeff is at it once more. They’ve gathered a small group of disciplemakers. The initial interest group comes from different and potentially divisive theological positions. They’ve decided, “Let’s be different but on mission together.”Jeff defines elders in light of “youngers,” believing that the newest disciples can pass along whatever they’ve learned to someone younger in faith. After all, he was teaching the Bible as he was learning it.They snagged a venue called the Classic Rock Coffee Company for public gatherings allowing for a low overhead startup. The model resembles the “school of Tyrannus” from Acts 19. It is a lecture/lab model. Weekend teachings serve as lectures, and small groups are the lab for disciplemaking and raising potential planters. If this podcast catches your imagination, you can email pastorsurf@gmail.com or call Jeff at 818-960-9447.