Mike O, who describes himself as a conservative evangelical Christian, found our site a few months ago. He believed it to be a ‘Christian’ site but was bothered by some of the content on it.

Mike had no interest in coming to our conference when he first read about it. However, he’s changed his mind and is now looking forward to joining us there in a few weeks.

I asked Mike to share in his own words his initial thoughts about Off The Map and what changed his mind about coming to the conference. This is Mike’s response (I added the subheadings):

It started with Zack

I followed my son, Zack here. He is currently in the process of validating/questioning the Christian beliefs my wife and I raised him with. And I actually encourage that. He’s 17, and I was 17 when I had to make my faith my own. And now I’m honored (and a tad bit scared) to do the same for my son.

Zack’s story is that we raised him in a Christian home with Christian relatives and Christian friends in a Christian school and a Christian church. Christian, Christian, Christian all the way. Which was fine until he got his first job. That’s where he first heard people dropping F-bombs like they were common conversational language (news flash to Mike — it is!) and smoking pot on breaks and partying all night. Thank God Zack hasn’t gotten into that, but what he realized was that he actually liked these people! I think that took him by surprise.

Right around that time, Zack had a conversation with his youth pastor about how to make the youth group more attractive to the unchurched. The problem was, Zack was thinking about his friends, F-bombs and all, and the youth pastor had no clue what unchurched kids were really like. The youth pastor couldn’t get past “how do we teach them to worship,” and Zack couldn’t get past “but they don’t want to worship … they want to party.”

That was my first real indication of how wide the separation between the church …my church … and the rest of the world really was. People who don’t want to go to church aren’t going to go because they should … they’ll go because they know me, and I go. (Or, they’ll not go because they know me, and I go!) I heard a quote recently that says, “People aren’t wondering whether or not you have the truth. They’re wondering whether or not they want to be like you.” It doesn’t matter what the truth is if they don’t want to be like you.

First impressions of Off The Map

Enter Off The Map. I started poking around and found my way to the Lost Interviews and started watching them, and that’s what hooked me.

A couple of weeks later I posted my first comment on an Off The Map blog. I think my first post was comment #18 on August 4th in a blog entry titled, In Every Seat, a video produced by Hope Baptist Church in Las Vegas. Jerry (who produced the video) and I hit it off immediately. I thought the video was fantastic, and still do. Jerry and I are still friends, and are still on the same page theologically (both conservative). In fact, I’m currently doing a devotional called “The Life of a Jesus Follower,” which his church produced. It’s very good and I recommend getting a copy of it for your church or personal use.

Off The Map’s ‘questionable theology’

It didn’t take too long, however, for me to discover that Off The Map and I were not exactly on the same page theologically. While I valued the idea of Ordinary Attempts, as I got to know people, I began to discover that my conservative views were not exactly in line with Off The Map. I didn’t mind Eliza and Siamang and others saying what they said because they aren’t Christians, and they aren’t supposed to think like me (notice who I’m comparing them to). But with Helen writing articles like, Why I don’t go to church any more and other articles like Jim’s call to arms and 10 reasons why your Church Sucks and others, that’s where I started running into trouble.

Off The Map IS doing something right

These were Christians, or at least I thought they were, but they didn’t think like me (notice again, who I’m comparing them to). Here are all these supposed Christians watering down the gospel I hold very dear, and talking smack about churches, which I happen to value as institutions. But as wrong as I thought that was, Off The Map was drawing me out of my conservative shell into a real world with real people that really do want to make the world a better place (MTWABP). And they’re better at MTWABP than I am. And I knew that if MTWABP was something I wanted to do, and it was, I needed to stick around.

On top of that, Off The Map had created something I had always wanted but never seen before … a place where our worlds could collide … where Christians and non-Christians could actually mix and talk and be friends without pretending they were something they were not, and without being too careful of our words for fear of offending someone. It was respectful, but honest here, and I loved that. And we could talk about God.

Time to check Jim knows what is going on on his website!

But I still wasn’t on board with everything. Some of my early entries were even used as blog starters, for which I am truly grateful. My voice, while going against the flow, was valued here. Blogs such as Mike O Cries ‘ICK! and Too much dead squirrel? and Have you guys drifted were my reactions to topics where I thought things were getting out of balance.

I even went so far as to send an email to Jim asking if he was aware of what was happening on his site! As it happened, Jim hadn’t been posting anything my first couple of weeks here, so I didn’t think he was an active participant. And I felt like I needed to call to his attention what was going on. If this wasn’t a place I wanted to be, I figured the top dog should at least know why. I believe in customer feedback. I asked him if I was an irritant and should be quiet, and he said no! He said all voices are valued here, and that that’s the point. Turns out, not only was he aware of what was going on at Off The Map, he encouraged it, and in fact, Jim is as bad as the rest!

Deciding to stay anyway

But I stuck around because as much as I was irritated by some of the positions taken, I simply couldn’t shake the fact that Off The Map was succeeding at something I wasn’t … Off The Map was connecting the church to the rest of the world. And from the very beginning, I decided that I was going to bring back to my church all of the valuable things I found here and leave the theology out of it.

The conference

When the Revolution Conference first started being advertised, I thought, “No way. I see value there but these people are too negative, too watered down and wayyy too liberal for me. I’m not even convinced the leaders are all Christians (turns out one of them isn’t sure either :-)). I don’t need to go to a liberal, watered-down conference to do OAs. I’ll just take what I value from the blogs, and hopefully add some value myself, and leave it at that.”

But over time, the more I got to know you guys, the more I liked you. ALL of you! Sure, we don’t agree on everything, but so what? It was Jim’s write-up on Why You Need to be at the Revolution Conference that changed my mind. The date on that post was August 30th, about 4 weeks since I had arrived. I had sure come a long way in 4 weeks.

Concluding thoughts about Jesus and Off The Map

I still don’t agree with everything I see here. I still think we point our finger at big churches more than we should, for one example. But that’s just me and my big fat opinion, and I can post a comment on that whenever the subject comes up if I choose. What I have learned is that rather than comparing what I see to me and what I think (notice, for the last time, who I’m comparing things to), I need to be comparing things to the life of Jesus Christ.

When I compare myself to Jesus Christ, I see a lot of faults. Left to my own devices I am a religious, opinionated, divisive, albeit nice guy. I’ve got my strengths, too, but that’s who I would be. And when I compare Off The Map to Jesus Christ, yes, I see some things that I think are faults. But I also see so many things that are absolutely dead on - connection, community, and conversation with the people Jesus misses most. I see the church as it once was … people that have a relationship with Jesus Christ mixing it up with those who don’t. And that is what Jesus was all about.

In the area of connecting with the people Jesus misses most, Off The Map compares wayyy better to Jesus Christ than I do. And I want that. And that is why I’m going to the Revolution conference!