At the TAG Consulting Leaders Forum in Scottsdale, Arizona, this week, noted Christian leader Leighton Ford spoke on how to move from crazed busyness to focused attentiveness. Leighton is president of Leighton Ford Ministries. For 30 years he served as associate evangelist and later vice president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. His newest book is The Attentive Life: Discerning God’s Presence in All Things (InterVarsity, 2008).
In introducing Leighton, Jim Osterhaus pointed out that Leighton has been at the forefront of 4 major church movements of the past 50 years: mass evangelism (with BGEA), reclaiming the social dimensions of the gospel (with Lausanne), the study of leadership (with Arrow Leadership Program), and now the reintroduction to evangelicalism of the good of contemplative living (his books).
As leaders, we all face 3 areas of busyness: busy minds, busy world, and busy churches.
Busy minds: Leighton admitted, “I may not be a workaholic, but I’m a thinkaholic. I wrote a book on attentiveness because I need so much to learn it. My mind is busy all the time, distracted. At the dinner table, my kids would ask, ‘Where did Dad go?’ because I’d gotten something on my mind and left the table to do it.”
Busy world: Lon Allison, director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, once asked, “What is the number-one value among evangelical leaders today?” He said, “I think, based on what we talk about when we get together, it’s frenzied busyness.”
Busy churches: Henri Nouwen wrote in The Way of the Heart (1981): “Our task is the opposite of distraction. It’s to help people concentrate on the real, but often hidden, event of God’s active presence in our lives.” So the question for the church leader is how to keep people from being so busy that they can no longer listen to the calling voice of God who speaks in silence.
Does the Bible speak about attentiveness? I was surprised as Leighton read the following verses, for starters:
–”We must pay more careful attention to what we’ve heard, so we don’t drift away.” (Hebrews 2)
–”We have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it.” (2 Peter 1)
We pay attention, because God is a god who is paying attention to us: “What are humans, that you are mindful of us?” (Psalm 8) Yet, in the words of one writer, “We think it’s the crazy pace of our lives that’s killing us, when really it’s our inattention to our deepest desire, our desire for God.”
Finally, Leighton closed with 3 profound questions of application:
1. What helps you most pay attention?
2. What keeps you from paying attention?
3. What have you heard God whisper?
Originally published on our sister site, Building For Ministry, a new online resource combining the wisdom of Cornerstone Knowledge Network and Christianity Today International. Sign up for your free enewsletter today.
