More about Off The Map Live

Posted by Helen on: 11.05.2007 /

I had a wonderful time! This post may be a bit random/stream of consciousness as I think through the experiences I had at the event. (I already wrote about my workshop about dialog and some opening night thoughts)

I was there Thursday and Friday; I missed Saturday because I flew back to hear Esther play in a district festival concert. (It went very well; I put two video clips of it on my personal website if anyone is interested).

I was very glad I said ‘yes’ to being a concierge. It was fun to wear an apron – it seemed so appropriate to wear a symbol saying “I’m here to serve you” since Off The Map’s mission is promoting the spirituality of serving. I probably wasn’t as available as I was supposed to be but I did try to be helpful and friendly and I enjoyed helping out in that way. Last year I realized I preferred being in the lobby than in sessions; one request made to concierges was that some stay in the lobby during sessions so that worked out great – I even had an excuse to be there!

I’m reading blogs to find out what was said by the main speakers and when I read them I sort of wish I had been in them – they sound so awesome. But I know if I had been I would have been totally restless – that’s how I was last year. I value the opportunity to have one-on-one conversations with people while I’m at the event so I consciously chose those over sitting in sessions.

It was great to meet the people who work with Off The Map that I’ve had many phone and e-mail conversations with: Elaine, Randy, Craig and Lani. Of course they were all as wonderful in person as I knew they were from our long-distance interactions. I got to talk to Craig a little Friday evening which was fun. I either met Jon Michel or saw him again – I think maybe we met briefly a year ago. He’s so friendly I would have loved to spend more time with him. Randy brought Sandy to help him look good (I can say that because he does) – Sandy is awesome so it was a good plan. Except that Randy is so high in my estimation he can’t go up any more – so it didn’t actually make any difference to me.

I was pleased to meet John Smulo who I’ve known online for a little while now. Meeting him in person was a delight – he is so warm-hearted and generous, in a gentle way. I also loved meeting Bill Dahl who is also totally warm-hearted and generous in a much more boisterous way. I think what struck me about the people I met in general is – the people who are drawn to this conference are people who greatly value kindness and do their best to live it out . With such a strong shared common value, I felt very much at home and much of the time it seemed irrelevant that on paper I ‘have a different belief system’.

It wasn’t irrelevant with two people I met but it wasn’t a problem either because they asked me about it with respect and kindness. I was pleased to spend a fair amount of time in conversation with Kerry and Tony , two great guys who were there from Saddleback to see what Off The Map is all about. They recently met with Jim and Casper and as a result decided to check us out a bit more. They’ve posted some very thoughtful video discussions about their experiences at the conference. They were aware of being more conservative than most other people there; they discuss what they learned from being in the minority, for a change, and about the value of listening to others in order to connect better. I hope you’ll listen to their video discussions. They were curious about my almost atheism. Kerry clearly values kindness and has no fear of friendly dialog with people different from him, which is awesome given my experience with pastors (did I mention he’s a pastor? :-)) At the same time he brings a message that many people find offensive. I see a conflict there that I don’t sense Kerry sees. I guess it’s a big deal to me because to get it out of me I had to leave conservative Christianity behind. A big part of my journey could be summarized as: I decided to resolve this conflict by assuming “most people are going to hell” is in error – since, although I suppressed this knowledge for almost two decades, I always knew deep inside that that doctrine conflicted with kindness and made no sense if God is love.

Jim included a 10 minute interview with me on Thursday evening – it was very kind of him to include me in the opening show. A number of people commented on what I said later. Some of them said I was articulate which was reassuring. Some were struck by my saying that being right interfering with being kind was a significant reason I had second thoughts about being a Christian. (This came up last year but they weren’t here last year).

First thing Friday I saw Jim and Claudio in the lobby. Claudo Oliver is a ‘backstage pastor’ from Brazil. He’s a great guy – very warm and friendly and passionate and full of interesting ideas. He told me an awesome story about Rene from his church who started a group at the University of Birmingham in England. Then Claudio said “Come with me – let’s e-mail Rene – I want to introduce him to you!” and took me over to the hotel lobby computer. Rene already e-mailed me back – I’m still catching up on e-mail but am looking forward to reading his version of the story and sharing it with Randy since it’s a great example of an OA.

Jim and Claudio left to go to a pre-arranged breakfast with people who wanted to meet Jim. I didn’t have plans so I decided to sit by the elevator and see if someone showed up who I could have breakfast with. A very friendly couple, Dawn and Bryan, were happy to see me and apparently as interested in having breakfast with me as I was with them. We ate together and I enjoyed hearing their stories. They have four children and pastor a church in New Mexico. Both Bryan and Dawn’s beliefs have changed over time from what they were raised in. Bryan threw out his TV when Clinton was elected but later repented (of his attitude :) and is a different person from when he did that.

I was pleased to meet Dawn Oas on Friday since I’ve seen the OA stories she sends in from her high school group. She’s a wonderful person who is encouraging lots of high schoolers to practice OAs (the core of which is, listening and paying attention to others). High school can be a difficult place – it’s awesome to think that these teenagers are there being kind to other teens. I also love that she runs a high school group focused on developing character rather than learning Bible verses and looking for ‘suitable’ people to date. I was relieved my children never wanted to go to youth group after what I heard about it – it seemed to me that what their violin teacher does with them develops more character than anything they would have done there. He has made them both leaders of string ensemble sections this year which means it’s their job to help anyone in their section who is having trouble. They have always helped their peers at school – their teachers tell me this – so I doubt this is really a ‘new’ concept to them. Esther has had students from her section coming to our house for help with their parts.

I was very happy Steve came up and introduced himself to me. He’d posted comments on our Off The Map Live blog recently and had decided to come check us out further.

Just before dinner I saw Diana Butler-Bass and was very pleased to have the opportunity to talk with her a little. She is surprised that women in the emerging church regard her as a role model. If she had just been pretending to be surprised in order to look humble that would really have annoyed me but she wasn’t. I think maybe she is still realizing how significant it is to other women to have a woman so visibly involved in emerging church conversation along with the men. There are still way more men visibly involved than women, even though no-one in the conversation has a theological reason why women should be less involved. I was happy to be able to congratulate Rose in person on being the first woman area leader in the Vineyard Church movement. I also enjoyed meeting Geneva and hearing that in her workshop she was going to say “Women rule!” – and knowing she was not going to say it in a mean anti-men way but simply to affirm women who are still much in need of affirmation.

I was very late for the bloggers’ dinner by the time I had left the church late and accidentally driven past it in Friday night traffic and had to turn around. I sat at the end by Peter which worked out really well because we had a great chat. I was also next to Xianhang who told me his PhD is about how the design of social networking software influences the way people interact online. Very interesting and it even ties into online dialog which I’m very interested in, of course. He was basically saying, if you design it well people are less likely to engage in flame wars. And he will be discussing that in his dissertation.

It was great to see many awesome people again that I met last year – Benjamin and Meg, Pam, Erin, Dave and Sharon – and all those others I forgot to list.

I was happy to have some opportunities to talk with Jim one one one and hear him share with other people one on one. I love to hear how he thinks and what he pays attention to. He is so great at paying attention to others. He was telling Christine (who I wish I’d had more time with) that Off The Map’s message is essentially “paying attention is spiritual”. I haven’t heard him say it that way before and I loved it – it’s so succinct and to the point.

I was very tired by Saturday morning. On the plane home I thought about the experience of the event as I meandered through varying states of consciousness. For me it was a people-experience rather than an information-experience, which was exactly what I wanted. I think it’s funny that some other people go for information and write up detailed reports of what presenters said on their blogs. Funny not because there’s anything wrong with it but simply because it’s fascinating how people go to events for different reasons. I am more interested in who people are than what they have to say. I am more intrigued about why they say what they say than what they say, per se :-). When I’ve been the only blogger I know at events I’ve taken detailed notes because I assume ‘information’ people will be interested to read them (like when I heard NT Wright and Brian McLaren locally). It was wonderful to know other people would do that at this event so I could just wander around and chat and be fascinated by people, their stories and their perspective. (And probably talk too much myself like I always do when I get excited, in spite of my best listening intentions)

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