We love the idea of the “purple church,” don’t we? A spiritual community where the red and blue sit side by side, shoulder to shoulder at the communion table. Where the politically conservative and the progressive choose the hard, sacred work of being in community across deep difference. Where unity doesn’t mean uniformity, and where shared worship animates shared mission and leads to shared witness in the world.
It’s a beautiful vision.
It’s also, in most cases, a myth.
I’ve spent the last decade walking with hundreds of churches across the U.S. and around the globe. I’ve watched congregations wrestle with immigration, policing, gun violence, climate change, racial justice, war, and poverty. I’ve sat in the tension of Sunday schools that want unity but can’t talk about reparations. I’ve coached leadership teams navigating the collapse of trust as soon as someone names white supremacy or apartheid.
What I’ve discovered is that the overwhelming majority of our churches are not conflict competent. The very chasms that divide our cities exist, untended, within our congregations. Like in our streets, a deficit of trust in our sanctuaries results in avoidance and power games rather than courageous discourse and creative love.
Which means we are not yet the answer to Jesus’ prayer in John 17:20-24. That the world would know God by the way we love each other.
Because love isn’t avoidance. Love doesn’t build and abuse power. Love doesn’t keep things polite. Love doesn’t sidestep hard conversations or quietly ask the prophetic voices to tone it down for the sake of the tithes.
Love is conflict in pursuit of connection.
Love is disagreement that doesn’t devolve into division.
Love is telling the truth and staying at the table.
But to do that? To be that kind of community?
We need to practice.
Because when we haven’t trained our bodies, minds, and spirits to hold tension, we become reactive. We shut down. We dehumanize. We disengage. We throw around words like “political” and “divisive” to avoid the discomfort of our urgently needed transformation.
So what we call “purple churches” are often just churches where the people in power have the privilege of avoiding the conflict altogether—while those on the margins, whose lives are politicized by systems of injustice, are told to quiet down or leave.
And yet, the call remains: to become one, not by erasing difference but by embodying love in the midst of it.
That means we need to learn how to engage in constructive disagreement.
We need to train in deep listening, especially to those whose voices have been ignored or silenced.
We need to embrace interdependence—the kind of mutuality that Jesus modeled in his life, death, and resurrection.
This is the courageous, often costly, always sacred work of Everyday Peacemaking.
And it’s not a myth.
It’s a muscle that can (& must) be strengthened.
You’re not alone in this. Global Immersion companions leaders and churches in practicing Everyday Peacemaking through coaching, immersive learning, and cohorts. Learn more and join us in this work at globalimmerse.org.
