The Kingdom of God was Jesus’ primary message. Most of what He talked and taught about was the Kingdom – whether through his parables, his sermons or the smaller conversations with his friends. In fact, all throughout his ministry, he announced that the Kingdom of God had come, is coming and will come. He then proceeded to demonstrate this upside-down Kingdom to all he came in contact with… this upside-down Kingdom where the first are last, leaders are servants and money won’t buy you a membership! This proclamation and demonstration of the Kingdom was his mission!
When asked how to pray, Jesus started off by saying “your Kingdom come… on earth as it is in heaven”. And this is where Purple People come in. If Heaven is a blue realm and Earth is a pink realm… what does it look like when it overlaps? What does it look like when Jesus’ prayer is answered and his Kingdom comes, on earth, as it is in heaven.
Well, it looks a little bit purple. It looks like a community of believers who carry this theological DNA of the Kingdom of God coming in all that we do. But what are the implications of this for our personal lives, our work lives, our finances, our families, our church, our neighbourhoods? What would all of this look like if his Kingdom were to come? And what does it mean for us, as disciples of- followers of- and apprentices to our Rabbi (teacher) Jesus, to model our lives on Him and be proclaimers and demonstrators of His Kingdom in all we do?
This is what it is to become a purple person.
Structure of the campaign
Our dream is to take the whole church on a journey – a deep journey of transformation and discovery – to re-imagine our presence in our neighbourhood and world.
As we’ve worked with churches and groups over the years, we’ve found that the Contextual Bible Study (CBS) methodology is extremely powerful for deep and rich conversations. While you don’t need a full CBS training to facilitate the Bible studies we’ll be doing in the Purple People campaign, we will provide helpful pointers in our Info Pack that will guide and enrich your facilitation.
The CBS methodology was developed by the Ujaama Centre at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. It is called contextual bible study as it’s very interested in understanding how three different contexts speak to each other and bring us greater understanding.
- the context of a passage of scripture within the broader book it’s written / cannon of scripture
- the historical context that the passage of scripture was written within and
- our local, current context and what the text may have to say to us today.
If you would like to dive deeper into the CBS methodology, The Warehouse Trust in Cape Town has developed a full CBS manual that can be purchased online on their website for R60 and a full CBS training with the support of the Ujaama Centre can be organised.