Over the past year I have made an e-friend who has become a “phone friend”, who one day I hope to meet. Jim lives in Seattle. He is co-founcer of Off-the-Map. My first encounter with Jim and his website came last May. In a conference call he shared some fascinating insights on evangelism; especially significant coming from Seattle. I have heard another pastor there claim that Seattle to be one of the most “pagan” or “post-Christian” environments. If you get the time to go to his website, take a look at some of the streaming video clips. For example, “An Interview with 3 Lost People.”

An interesting development Jim is finding is more and more, people do not consider themselves “lost.” They even find it offensive to be considered “lost.” The question then becomes how do we share about the Kingdom of God and the victory of Christ? Do we have to find ways to help them “understand their lostness?” Or are there other elements of the Kingdom way of life that would be used by the Spirit of God to bring them to a place of repentance, confession and following Jesus, the Christ?

I suspect Jim has one way to raise curiosity and stir conversation leading to an authentic interest in someone coming to faith. He calls them “Ordinary Attempts.”