Our King was once asked: “Which commandment is the most important of all?” King Jesus replied, “This is the most important: ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is One. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”
This means that working in His Kingdom,
THE Kingdom, which our organization is simply named after (and could by no means encompass all of), is to be working for something bigger than ourselves. It's to be working to perpetuate that love: the love for our Creator who loved us first, and the love for our neighbor that is intrinsically contagious once we realize how much He loves us.
What that translates to is "Life done differently". We aren't perfect, nor infallible, only God is, but based on a lot of imperfect listening to Him so far, here's what we have come to think that means:
- Good according to God - God gets to define what is and isn't good. If it goes against His word, it goes against A Different Kind of Kingdom.
- Good for neighbor - What we do needs to be for the true good of our neighbor, regardless of our personal tastes or interests.
- Good for planet - We were called to be stewards, and "cultivating the garden" was the first job for humans. What we do now should tend the garden too: it should be constructive and sustainable, creating something bigger than ourselves that leaves things better than we found them.
- Good for us - It's okay to want to make an honest living and to have a happy life - in fact, we're commanded to do so. But this can only be done if the other pillars are sought after first: if God's love and our requited love for Him rule in our hearts, grow out into our love for neighbor, and into care for the entire creation that He gave us.
For tangible examples of how we attempt to put this into practice, check out how our clothes are made!
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