By Jim Henderson

Word association game time…

I say spiritual practice – what images come into your mind?

If you have been formed or influenced by any of the major world religions (including Christianity) you will think of things like
mediation, prayers you recite, ritual liturgical gatherings you attend, mental disciplines and maybe fasting
What you probably won’t include on that list are things like

• Listening to someone
• Holding the door for someone
• Noticing someone across the room who is struggling
• Asking someone how they are doing and actually paying attention
• Feeding someone who is hungry
• Visiting with or advocating for someone who is trouble with the law
• Dropping clothes off at Goodwill

You may think of these practices as spiritual

You may even do them intentionally, not for points, but in order to be faithful to the God you follow.

Nevertheless you won’t often hear these practices being referred to by church leaders with the same degree of reverence, frequency or fervency as what has become known as the interior spiritual practices.

For some reason, when it comes to being a serious follower of Jesus, the spirituality of serving others doesn’t count for as much as prayer, worship or church attendance. More insidiously we’ve learned to transfer these same values to God who apparently lacks the capacity to see or value the small and invisible things human beings do in their day to day lives to serve others.

This in spite of the fact that Jesus clearly favored the small, invisible and private over the public and obvious saying such things as when you give don’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing and when you pray don’t be like the Pharisees and if you want to be my disciples do things like give those without the ability to thank you something as small and ordinary as a cup of cold water (our cultural equivalent would be paying attention to someone without drawing attention to ourselves).

It’s apparent that by his words and practices, Jesus – the founder of our movement and our Master – clearly thought of serving others as a spiritual practice.

Off The Map came into being out of a desire to see people once again give priority to the spirituality of serving – something we call Otherlyness. Each year we host an event that provides a platform for people who are thinking about this lost practice and those who are practicing the art of serving others.

We are particularly interested in learning from ordinary people – Christians and Non Christians alike who have discovered opportunities to serve others that are doable, human and fun. We bring these practitioners of Otherlyness together under one roof in our Trade Show where people can talk with them one on one and learn their tricks of the trade.

We also bring in leaders like Phyllis Tickle and Michael Frost to expand our vision and provide historical, spiritual and cultural context for the changes we are sensing in our world and in the church.

Off The Map is a place people come to every year to get their spiritual batteries charged and to meet new people who are practicing Otherlyness in their world.

We’ve made it very difficult for you to stay away by providing a menu of choices that accommodate your schedule and a price that anyone can afford. We like to say with tickets starting at just $19 we’ve made student rates available to everyone.