“What Is Asking for Your Attention Right Now?”
Reflections on Leadership, Systems, and Inner Clarity
In ministry and leadership, we excel at attending to the world around us.
We listen for pain.
We discern needs.
We respond to crisis.
We anticipate the next request.
Our practices, our training, and our vocation push us outward — into attentiveness for others. And that is part of faithful leadership.
But over time, this outward focus paradoxically invites a kind of inner blindness: a failure to notice what is happening within us. What is quietly forming. What is shaping our decisions. What is asking to be seen.
This month’s reflection invites you into a single question:
What is asking for your attention right now?
Not what should have your attention.
Not what everyone else is demanding.
Not what fills your task list.
But what is moving you — emotionally, spiritually, relationally, and vocationally.
This is not self-absorption.
This is attention as a theological act — a practice of interior discernment that precedes our outer work and deepens it.
Attention Is a Formational Practice
When we think about attention biblically, it is not about introspective navel-gazing. Throughout Scripture, attention is relational and theological:
Moses turns aside to see the burning bush.
Samuel listens for the Lord’s voice.
Jesus withdraws to pray.
The Psalmist waits and watches for God.
Attention loosens our grip on distraction and surfaces what is real before God.
In your leadership, what if attention is not simply one more task, but a way of seeing — a posture of willingness to notice before you act?
Attention and Systems: What We’re Ignoring Isn’t Invisible
Family systems theory helps us see leadership not as a set of techniques, but as life lived in relationship. Bowen’s theory highlights that:
Leadership contexts are living systems shaped by emotional processes.
A leader’s internal patterns influence the whole system.
Anxiety, reactivity, and avoidance are relational forces that ripple through communities.
Leadership effectiveness is not measured by task accomplishment alone, but by emotional maturity and the capacity to manage oneself amid relational pressures.
In other words:
When the leader does not attend to what is happening within, the system will feel it on the outside.
Systems don’t eliminate anxiety — they circulate it. And our internal tension often becomes the system’s external climate.
Four Quadrants of Attention
To help you engage this reflection practically and prayerfully, consider using the tool offered below: The Attention Map.
It invites you to notice gently across four relational spaces:
Self / Others / Work / God
And ask:
What is loud right now?
(The obvious stresses, demands, or pressures.)What is quiet but persistent?
(The subtle longings, aches, questions, or dissonances.)What am I avoiding noticing?
(The reality you might be steering around because it feels uncomfortable, exposing, or uncertain.)
These questions are not about diagnosis or problem-solving. They are about seeing and noticing.
Because before we can attend to others in a healthy way, we must first learn to attend to ourselves — not in a navel gazing way, but in a relationally aware way.
Why This Matters for Ministry and Leadership
Systems thinkers remind us that leaders are always part of a broader relational field. Our internal rhythms — emotional, spiritual, cognitive — shape:
Our decision-making
The tone we bring into meetings
The way we hear conflict
Our capacity to stay calm under pressure
Our ability to think before reacting
When we ignore what’s gathering beneath the surface — anxiety, fatigue, discouragement, longing — it doesn’t fade. It expresses itself through tension, reactivity, avoidance, or exhaustion.
Attention of this kind is not soft. It’s hard work.
It’s the capacity to notice what others seldom see — especially within ourselves.
A Gentle Invitation into Practice
Before your next meeting.
Before your next sermon.
Before your next conversation.
Pause.
Ask:
What is loud?
What is quiet but persistent?
What am I avoiding noticing?
And then sit with what arises.
Not to fix it.
Not to solve it.
Not to defend or dismiss it.
But to name it before God.
You will find the downloadable Attention Map attached to this reflection — a space to write, pray, notice, and return to.
May this practice deepen your capacity to lead with clarity, steadiness, and grace.
