Attention, Please!

I confess. I am lousy at paying attention. My wife says something about me and my lack of attention—I don’t recall exactly what she says, but I’m sure it’s important. Some of my more embarrassing moments have been when people catch me not paying attention during a conversation. I am not alone. People in general are poor attention-givers. Pastors in particular divide our minds into so many directions that we don’t give adequate attention to anyone or anything. When we are at our worst, we seek attention more than we give it.

Craig Barnes, reflecting on his pastoral ministry, says, “I’ve never had a job description that said, ‘pay attention to the holy, and then other duties as assigned.’ But that’s actually what I try to do… Everything else is just everything else.”1 It may seem elementary, but what if the most crucial pastoral practice is simple attentiveness to God and to people?

God is attentive. God hears cries, knows innermost thoughts, and numbers hairs on heads. As those set apart by God to represent God in this world, pastors should be good attention-givers. The frenetic pace of pastoral ministry runs counter to attentiveness. Our never-ending lists of pastoral duties can keep us from what matters most. To give attention well, we must un-busy ourselves. It’s easier said than done. But if it’s not done, we run the greater risk of doing damage to ourselves and others.

The interior prayer life, before it is anything else, is about giving God our attention. Whether or not words are spoken, prayer is about being fully present with God. When my children were young, I realized the value of hand-clasping during prayer. Joining busy hands together kept them from engaging the distractions around them. This is why retreats, revivals, pilgrimages, and camps are occasions for spiritual growth. God gets us away from controlled routines and pushes us to find new gears. God detaches us from distractions so God can have our attention.

Beyond the interior prayer life, God longs for our attention in the public arena. Giving attention to the exterior world is giving attention to God. God actively and consistently reveals himself in the world. The Bible tells us that creation claps and groans and sings and shouts. God’s good world is bursting at the seams to show us the wonder of God. Beyond the natural world, God speaks through art and music and culture. God is alive in the world around us, always incarnating himself if we have eyes to see and ears to hear.

When we give attention to people, we give attention to God. Many people are attention-starved. They have few meaningful interactions in which they’re seen or heard. One of the many benefits of table fellowship is that it brings us face-to-face with one another for an extended time. Table gatherings become occasions for sincere engagement. When putting our feet under the same table, we regard one another more deeply. We invest ourselves. We share life. And God has a way of showing up.

Paying attention to God means paying attention to the margins. God continually moves on the margins of society. The poor widow in Mark 12 and Luke 21 lived unnoticed. Then Jesus saw her. Jesus paid attention to what God was doing through her. What if God longs to have our attention and we fail to realize it because we don’t pay attention to those on the margins? Those who are poor and powerless are not fully seen or truly heard in the world because they offer little in the way of productiveness. Our culture struggles over how much consideration should be given to minority voices. For followers of Jesus, the answer is clear. We hear the unheard. Not because of their ability to contribute but because this is how God operates. God lives and loves on the margins. God’s heart beats there. If we want to see and hear God, we must be willing to see and hear unseen and unheard people.

Sometimes we struggle and strive to get God’s attention. Meanwhile, God is concerned with having ours. Giving attention is a learned and practiced art. The more we make ourselves available to God, the more we learn to make ourselves available to God. After all, everything else is just everything else.

Rev. Daron Brown lives and pastors in Waverly, Tennessee, with his wife, Katie, and children, Kendall, Parker, and Macy.