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. ...