Last week I got an invitation to moderate the Ordinary Attempts blog at Off-the-Map.org. After I got the guidelines, I decided to think about it for a few days. This morning I accepted.

I really like the Off the Map folks. They are keenly evangelistic, but not in the usual way. Jim Henderson, the father of OtM, tells people that he’s trying to teach evangelicals to not be weird. I think that is a good description.

By weird he means the outrageous things that we sometimes do in the name of evangelism–things that totally turn off the unchurched. Ordinary Attempts are the commonsense, respectful, and caring acts done for another person, just because.

The interesting thing is that we now live in a time that is perfectly suited for OA’s. The knock-on-your-door, programmatic approach to evangelism simply doesn’t work for most folks.

OA’s require patience, but they produce relationships that are deep, genuine, and potentially the context for future discussions about Jesus.

If you want to read over my shoulder go to Ordinary Attempts and watch the conversation that goes on there.