Arts and Culture on Attention

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For all our time and attention, no matter how carefully we curate our stuff or how much we might enjoy ourselves along the way, we’re all merely stocking and staging someone else’s opportunity for bar...

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The Church Losing its Place as the Center of Attention

Author

Tim Wu

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The Church was the one institution whose mission depended on galvanizing attention; and through its daily and weekly offices, as well as its sometimes-central role in education, that is exactly what i...

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Author

Ann Voskamp

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When I fully enter time’s swift current, enter into the current moment with the weight of all my attention, I slow the torrent with the weight of me all here.

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The Frequency Illusion

Author

Shelly Miller

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You decide to buy a certain kind of car, and suddenly you see it everywhere. A friend recommends an obscure movie to you, and by the end of the week, three more people have mentioned it. You find out ...

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Losing to A Goldfish

Author

John Mark Comer

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Cue a terrifying trend: our attention span is dropping with each passing year. In 2000, before the digital revolution, it was twelve seconds, so it’s not exactly like we had a lot of wiggle room. But ...

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Unsurprisingly, whenever we bring the topic of desire

Author

Curt Thompson

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Scripture

Song of Solomon 8:6-7 , Genesis 29:16-30, Hosea 2:14-20, Psalm 42:1-2, John 4:7-26 , Ephesians 5:25-32

Unsurprisingly, whenever we bring the topic of desire into view, our imaginations easily wander in the direction of sex, which can be as discomforting as it is arousing—but it is certainly not irrelev...

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Digital Versus Analog Listening

Author

Adam S. McHugh

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Scripture

1 Samuel 3:9-10, Exodus 19:9, 1 Kings 19:11-12, John 10:27, Revelation 3:20, Psalm 46:10

Last year I joined the growing ranks of people who have made the return to music on vinyl. There is much debate in my family as to whether I’m a hipster or will soon be eating dinner at 4 p.m. and wea...

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When Scandals Become Blasé

Author

Jonathan K. Dodson

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Scripture

Hebrews 13:4, Matthew 18:6-10

In his thoughtful book, Our Good Crisis: Overcoming Moral Chaos with the Beatitudes , Jonathan K. Dodson describes what has become a reality of modern-day life-scandals happen every day, and no-one...

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Not Holding on as Tightly

Author

Scott Bowerman

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Here’s a story about tithing - giving away 10% of one’s income, from of all places, Forbes magazine. In the article, the writer tells the story of Greg Gianforte, the founder, chairman and CEO of Rig...

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Targeting our Attention Gaps

Author

Tony Reinke

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Scripture

Luke 10:41-42, Ecclesiastes 5:1, Mark 6:31, Isaiah 30:15, Psalm 46:10

Smartphones make it possible for the attention economy to target our little attention gaps as we transition between tasks and duties. Our attention may be slightly elastic enough to fill up every empt...

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Targeting Human Attention

Author

Tony Reinke

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Entertainment

Again, human attention is a zero-sum game. At some point we must close all our screens and fall asleep—which makes sleep the enemy of digital spectacle makers (and sleep was named chief competitor by ...

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Author

Alain de Botton

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The attentions of others matter to us because we are afflicted by a congenital uncertainty as to our own value, as a result of which affliction we tend to allow others’ appraisals to play a determinin...

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Distraction is the Greatest Threat to Churches

Author

Andrew Sullivan

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Scripture

1 Kings 19:11-13, Ecclesiastes 5:1-2 , Isaiah 30:15, Luke 10:38-42 , Mark 1:35 , Psalm 46:10

The journalist Andrew Sullivan has some strong words of advice for the modern church, If the churches came to understand that the greatest threat to faith today is not hedonism but distraction, p...

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Staying Quiet in a Noisy World

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Scripture

1 Peter 5:8, Ephesians 6:12, Proverbs 4:23, Matthew 26:41, Psalm 46:10, 1 Kings 19:11-12, John 10:10

In the Critically acclaimed 2018 horror film A Quiet Place , Earth faces an alien invasion unlike any other. In the movie, the aliens behave like merciless monsters, using their lightning-fast sp...

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The Impact Noise Can have on Learning

Author

Ari L. Goldman

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Have you ever wondered the impact noise can have on our cognitive ability? Psychologist Arlene Bronzaft was curious to find out. Studying Public School 98 on the northern tip of Manhattan, Bronzaft fo...

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Author

Cory Doctorow

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The biggest impediment to concentration is your computer's ecosystem of interruption technologies: IM, email alerts, RSS alerts, Skype rings, etc. Anything that requires you to wait for a response...

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Author

David N. Bastian

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I was told that our worship services should be designed with seekers in mind, and that unchurched people have neither the attention span nor the interest to give to the reading of Bible passages. The ...

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How to Avoid the Frenzy of Contemporary Events

Author

Jeffrey Bilbro

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News/Media

A contemplative politics entails a two-part movement, one that parallels Thoreau’s injunction to be wary of trivia and devoted to eternal truths. The first involves an askesis, a kind of self-discipli...

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Forever Elsewhere

Author

Sherry Turkle

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Scripture

James 1:25, Mark 4:19, Hebrews 2:1, Isaiah 55:2-3, Ecclesiastes 5:1

We say we turn to our phones when we’re “bored.” And we often find ourselves bored because we have become accustomed to a constant feed of connection, information, and entertainment. We are forever el...

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The Fourth Option to Dealing with Contempt

Author

Arthur C. Brooks

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In his book Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt , author and professor Arthur C. Brooks charts the rise of anger — and more importantly, contempt — ...

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Sermon Prep & Self-Awareness: Austin Carty's Guide to Authentic Sermon Writing

Author

Paul Koptak

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Some of the Words are Theirs: The Art of Writing and Living a Sermon by is a book by a preacher who loves the craft of writing . And what is the writing of poetry, fiction, essay, but offering ins...

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Elemental Claims of the Gospel by Walter Brueggemann

A Theological Giant's Final Word Walter Brueggemann’s passing on June 5, 2025 leaves a void in biblical scholarship that will last a very long time. He was still writing books and essays at age 9...

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Reading Genesis by Marilynne Robinson | A Review

Author

Paul Koptak

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Robinson's Winsome Faith I’ve been reading Marilynne Robinson's novels and essays for some time now. Of her fiction, I’ve read Gilead , reflections of a retired minister written for his ...

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Review: How to Know a Person

Author

Richard Herman

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There are there a few books that I come across now that I’m officially “retired” from the pastorate that I sincerely wish I had been able to read, digest and act on as a young pastor. David Brook’s la...

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O God, You amaze us! Summer is the time

Author

Julie Olive Hughes

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O God, You amaze us! Summer is the time You designed for thunderstorms. We understand the science because You gave human beings wisdom and curiosity, and the ability to try to figure things out. We un...

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Good and Gracious Lord, You hold us in

Author

Richard Herman

Scripture

Isaiah 41:10, Romans 8:28, Psalm 46:1-2, Micah 6:8, Psalm 34:18, Genesis 50:20, Mark 4:35-41

Good and Gracious Lord, You hold us in the palm of Your strong hand, working all things for our good and to Your glory. There’s no place we can go that escapes Your notice and is hidden from Your lovi...

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Author

Timothy R. Jennings

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In 2007 Frederick Zimmerman and Dimitri Christakis confirmed that educational television watching in children over the age of two did not worsen attention problems, but both nonviolent and violent the...

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Author

Catherine Strode Parks and Linda Strode

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Weddings have evolved over the past few decades to become a major industry, with the average cost of a wedding in 2010 coming in just under $27,000. Unfortunately the vast majority of couples spend th...

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Author

Sherry Turkle

Keywords

We say we turn to our phones when we’re “bored.” And we often find ourselves bored because we have become accustomed to a constant feed of connection, information, and entertainment. We are forever el...

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Pursuing the Common Good in Community

Author

Don Everts

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In 2017 Rebekah Morris was teaching English and journalism at Cross Keys High School, a public high school in Atlanta. Noticing that her students had really important, insightful things to say about t...

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