History

The media and evangelistic campaign that is now known as Jesus. All about life began life as a series of think-tanks, chaired by Rev Karl Faase, for Christian Television, Australia.

Over a 10 month period in 2002, the group met to consider how best to promote Christian faith, using the media, in Australia. Funding for the think-tanks came from the Genesis Foundation.

After looking at a number of overseas projects and campaigns, Campus Crusade’s ‘Power to Change’  campaign was chosen to be most like what the group wanted to do in Australia.

The think-tank’s report was written and published together with a position paper. The working title ‘Christian Media Project’ (CMP) was chosen.

In September, 2002 – Martin Robinson, a researcher working for Bible Society UK, addressed a Bible Society regional conference in Thailand about the work the Society had been doing in the UK to ‘engage with culture’.

He said, “In western Europe we have succeeded in producing a generation that knows nothing about the scriptures. So serious is this lack of knowledge that in some departments of Fine Arts in our universities they are having to run courses in the Bible so students can understand medieval art and English literature. Whether we like it or not, we are living in a society that knows increasingly less and less about the Bible.”

Martin Robinson’s answer to this lack of Biblical knowledge was that Bible Societies world-wide needed to present the story of the Bible in a way that is culturally relevant. “We need to engage with our culture”, he said.

Bible Society NSW , who attended the Thailand conference, saw the Christian Media Project concept as a way of ‘engaging with Australian culture’ and in January, 2003 it became a project of Bible Society NSW.

Although the theological basis and key ideas had been developed, the brand name and nature of the campaign needed considerable development.

The first step was to conduct research into firstly, how Australians saw the Church and the Christian faith and then secondly, how to effectively present the Christian message using prime-time television.