'Purple Book' Builds Army of Disciples in Mexico
The Purple Book is proving to be a strategic weapon in the battle for a million souls in Baja California, Mexico, a ministry said.
After just a little more than a year, Baja Christian Ministries' Purple Book Discipleship Program has graduated about 2,300 people with more than 9,500 currently participating in the program.
Organizers say their campaign to disciple 1 million people in the Mexican state of Baja California within 20 years using the Purple Book is going better than expected.
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"It's working. It's actually working and it's actually growing by leaps and bounds," said David Angulo, BCM director of the purple book program, to The Christian Post.
Angulo, who is currently living in Baja California to oversee the campaign, said the Purple Book program has taken a "life of its own" and pastors are volunteering to introduce it to their congregation.
"When you go down to the nitty-gritty it's warfare for souls that are living in darkness," Angulo said, offering a mental picture. "Picture a superpower in the sense of funding, and you have allies that are brothers in Christ in another country. What we're basically doing is supplying all these guerilla warfares with the tools they need to wage war on the battle for souls."
"We picture ourselves as gun runners for the Lord," Angulo joked.
In Mexico, there is little Christian education in churches so most people have not had a chance to be discipled. Studies have even shown some Mexican pastors have less knowledge of the Bible than the average church-going Christian in America.
"I am just supplying for the troops out here," the Purple Book director said. "Basically we're just putting tools in their hands and they're going out there and facing the enemy in their daily lives with these tools."
Since 1992, BCM has worked in poor communities in Baja California – the peninsula located just south of the California-Mexico border – building houses and evangelizing people in the area.
But it was not until 2007 that the ministry incorporated a method to account for how many people it had discipled and how close it was to its 1 million goal.
The Purple Book: Biblical Foundations for Building Strong Disciples, by Rice Broocks and Steve Murrell, was used as the basis for the ministry's tracking system. Each person that completed the Bible study workbook, dubbed the Purple Book because of its purple cover, would be counted as one new disciple for Christ.
"It is not just a matter of leading people to the Lord and giving them a Bible," BCM founder Bob Sanders contends. "We want to actually see them grow in faith."
"This Purple Book is just the perfect tool because it engages them. It engages them in an active Bible study," he said.
The workbook works hand-in-hand with the Bible by asking questions that readers can find the answers to in the Bible.
"It takes about 25 sermons to cover what is in this Purple Book and that's why you are given a good dose of the Gospel to the people through doing this book," Sanders said.
"They come out of the book knowing how to pray, knowing what it means to have faith, [and] knowing the importance of being baptized."
Sanders, a self-described evangelist, shared that at many evangelism events people just raise their hands, come up to the altar, and are prayed for. But he wanted to go a step further and put a "solid biblical foundation underneath their spiritual life."
"Instead of just a thousand people raise their hands here and there, that's good too, but I think people need a little more to get into what we would call the discipleship process," Sanders said.
Using the Purple Book, which some have praised as a Bible institute in a book, the ministry has been able to bring the Gospel into many poor communities in Baja as well as prisons and rehab centers.
"What it is doing is it is allowing them to have a brand new start," Sander said. "Again, without the Bible it is a worthless tool, but with the Bible it is giving them vital information and knowledge that they may not be able to extract themselves through their own reading of the Bible."
On average, it takes three to four months to complete the Purple Book program. However, groups are given free reign over the amount of time to complete the workbook. Some groups have taken one year while others have finished within 1 month.
The passionate evangelist noted that no Christian who believes that the Bible is the foundation of faith should have a problem with the Purple Book because it does not bring in denominational doctrine, but only focuses on biblical doctrine.
The age range of participants is wide, with the youngest around 10 years old and the oldest a 74-year-old woman who has completed the program at least twice.
Ministry leaders noted that the reason for the program success besides the book itself is the "aura of accountability." BCM staffs follow through on their commitment to visit the leader of each Purple Book group once a month.
Volunteer leaders, which include pastors, guide groups of 25 or more people to complete the Purple Book program.
Last year, BCM surpassed its goal of enrolling 10,000 people in the Purple Book program. This year, BCM doubled the goal to 20,000 people and has already enrolled 2,000 people despite the new counting period having only begun on July 30.
"Mexico is a country that is ripe for revival," concluded Sanders, who encouraged attendees at a recent leadership conference to start seeing Tijuana (a city in the Baja California) as being one of the most holy cities in the world.
"That almost seems contradictory because Tijuana has such a reputation," he acknowledged. "[But] we could end up seeing a city that has a reputation of not being so great become a very holy city because there are a lot of hungry hearts for the Word of God and we're meeting that need."
BCM is seeking prayer partners who can pray for the following needs:
• BCM staff to continue to be effective and protected by God
• House-building ministry to continue to be effective
• Purple Book discipleship program to continue to grow
• Doors to remain open in Baja California for the Gospel to spread rapidly
• Financial donors
On the Web: www.bajachristian.org
