The “purple cow” initially became famous as a wildly fanciful and highly unrealistic reference in a short humorous verse written by Gelett Burgess in 1895, “I never saw a purple cow, I never hope to see one. But I can tell you anyhow I’d rather see than be one.” It has since come to refer to a wide range of different kinds of things, including marketing practices in general. What they did keep in common, though, was that they all had a theme of a sense of something out of the ordinary.
In 2003, Seth Godin wrote a book called Purple Cow, stating that “You’re either a Purple Cow or you’re not. You’re either remarkable or invisible.” In Mr. Godin’s book, he talks about the P’s of marketing and says that most of them aren’t working any longer and came up with the new “P” for “Purple Cow”. He came up with this term after taking a trip with his family through France. During their travels, they were enchanted by the hundreds of storybook cows that were grazing on the “picturesque pastures” next to the highway. For many miles, they gazed out the window of their car amazed by how beautiful everything was. But after about 20 minutes, they began ignoring the cows because they all started looking common – no, worse, boring! He thought that cows, no matter how beautiful or attractive they were became boring after awhile. But, a purple cow … now THAT would be something! Purple Cow to Mr. Godin would describe something that was phenomenal, something counterintuitive and exciting and flat-out unbelievable. A purple cow was something remarkable and worth talking about! Worth noticing. Exceptional. Boring stuff is invisible. It’s a brown cow.
Right about now, you’re probably saying, “Okay, I get it. But what does this have to do with the Great Hope Christian Fellowship website? What does a ‘purple cow’ have to do with Christianity?” That’s a good question.
At our initial meeting to talk about our goals for the website and what our purpose was, we just started throwing some things on the table. One of our members mentioned the purple cow. We had been quite a few hours into the meeting already, and everything was starting to be really funny to us. We couldn’t stop laughing about that idea and decided we could call one section “Holy Purple Cow”. We'd make it a place to show that Christians do have a sense of humor and do have fun.
The more we talked about it, though, the more God showed us that being a “Purple Cow” was more than just a comical feature we could use. Our God is Exceptional, Remarkable, Phenomenal, Indescribable! With no irreverence intended, our God is the Supreme Purple Cow. There is no comparison to Him. He stands above all the rest. So our website will also strive to provide our readers exceptional information, inspiration, and motivation to help them grow in their walk with the Lord, and in a way that is unique to whom we are.
As Christians, we all should be striving to live a holy, “purple-cow” life. We are each uniquely created by the Master Creator (God) for a remarkable and exceptional purpose. Sometimes, we forget how special we are to Him. We get lazy or “ho-hum” about our daily lives. We even forget the joyful part of being a Christian and, in doing so, become a simple, unremarkable, invisible “brown cow”. Those who don’t know the Lord as their personal Savior may look at us and say “Boy, Christians sure have a boring life. They don’t have any fun. I don’t want that kind of life!” We know that is not true, though. Christian life is a joy to live. Instead, they should be saying, “Wow, I don’t know what it is about that person, but there sure is something special about them. I want some of what they have!”
We know that God has a sense of humor. Look at some of the animals he created – emu, aardvark, baird tapir, cow fish – need we say more? The purpose of “Holy Purple Cow!” is to remind us that our God is EXCEPTIONAL and REMARKABLE and that He fills our hearts with joy in the “serious” aspects of our daily walk with Him. Hopefully, you will see that He also gives us joy in the simple things of life such as a laughing baby, a joke, and cartoons. We will share with you little tidbits to make you think, smile, or laugh out loud.
Don’t be a brown-cow Christian. Let the light of our Holy, Exceptional, Remarkable … Perfect Father shine in your life so that others may see the awesomeness of the God we love and serve!
"The light in the eyes [of him whose heart is joyful] rejoices the hearts of others, and good news nourishes the bones." (Prov 15:30)