Attending

To Attend: To be present at…

Attention: The action of dealing with or taking special care of someone or something.

Attention span: The amount of time spent concentrating on a task before becoming distracted.

I have served as a Christian educator and Royal Servants trip leader for the past 16 years. Capturing and keeping students' attention is one of the most challenging tasks of any educator or youth pastor. There is a war going on for our attention and the attention of our students. Jonathan Haidt says, “Social media apps exist in order to sell access to your attention.” The addictive nature of screens and apps that many students carry in their pocket function as experience blockers, discipling students toward inattention and short attention spans.

In 1985, Neil Postman prophetically said in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death,  

“People will come to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think”

“When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.”

“I believe I am not mistaken in saying that Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether.”

Over the past decade, popular media has shifted from TV to streaming to reels, shorts, and TikToks. I have witnessed the fragmentation of common narratives of youth culture; no longer do students gather on Friday mornings to discuss what happened on the latest episode of the hit sitcom that aired Thursday night. But more than that, as entertainment has been consolidated into 50 second clips, I see a fragmentation of attention.

Romans 12:1-2

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Each morning throughout the summer, from Training Camp to debriefing, we spend an hour alone reading scripture, asking questions, and praying. For some on our team this summer, spending an hour alone in silence with just their Bible and journal has been a significant task. In a very practical way, I see in our students the renewal of their minds as they work to discipline their attention and then their thinking … to set aside the trite and often shallow entertainments and distractions of the digital world (so often found in their pockets) and to attend to what really matters - the Word of God, each other, and the people to whom we are ministering.

Today, Thursday, we finish reading the Gospel of Luke. We began reading Luke when we arrived in Costa Rica, reading about three chapters a day. Most evenings, we gather in an upstairs room at the church (the green room, we call it, for the olive colored walls) to discuss as a team the scriptures we read that morning. Over the last couple of nights, we have sought to put in its historical context Jesus’s triumphal entry, cleansing of the temple, and the last supper to better understand and visualize the political and religious significance of Jesus’s actions and to make sense of why the Sadducees go to such great length to put him to death. Most nights, we have had to cut off the questions for the sake of going to bed. The excitement and engagement in the story of Jesus has been incredible. Each day, our students are attending more and more to Jesus and growing in their faith.

This past Tuesday and Wednesday were two of our most exciting days of ministry yet. Tuesday we took the long drive back into San Jose, this time into the city center. We spent most of the morning in and around a square in the city center doing street evangelism. Our first performance drew only a modest crowd, but we had some good conversations and many people allowed our team members to pray for them. After a short prayer walk (and stops to find a bathroom), our second performance drew a much larger crowd. Back at Training Camp, leaders from our Peru team trained our puppet team in puppet performances in Spanish. There were not many kids in the crowd, but we decided to begin our second performance with puppets. The blaring Spanish music definitely drew the attention of everyone in the square. Natalie, one of our Summer Staff, and Josh and Elliot, two alumni, led the puppet team to a fantastic performance that really drew people in. After dance and drama, our team engaged in more than a dozen conversations in small groups guided by our Costa Rican interpreters and students and Staff we have who speak Spanish. We praise God for the chance to pray over so many in the crowd that day.

After our morning of ministry, we stopped by a local artisan market to do some souvenir shopping and break for lunch. Bakeries are a cultural staple here in Costa Rica, and many on our team make it a daily habit to attend to some baked goods at least once a day. San Jose’s bakeries did not disappoint. Before leaving, we stopped at the National Museum. The museum opens to a butterfly sanctuary, which by itself is worth the price of admission. From there, we were able to wander through a rich narrative of the history of Costa Rica, from its pre-European tribal cultures to the present. It was definitely worth giving our attention.

On Wednesday, we traveled about an hour through scenic mountain views to a city to which we’ve not visited. We arrived outside an unassuming building which, to our surprise, opened to a beautiful church. We met with the Pastor and some of the youth from the church. They led us to the neighborhood next door, which was one of the poorer neighborhoods in the city. We arrived at a small, soggy soccer field and children’s playground. Within minutes, the park was packed with local kids, teens, and parents. A large and muddy game of soccer was going strong, and the children’s games we brought with us were swarmed by an excited group of kids. Once again, our puppets were a hit, and so was our dance team. We got to share the Gospel with a number of families and even taught some of the kids our dances. Everyone left the community with a real sense of having faithfully served a community that was excited to receive the love of Jesus.

For many years, I worked as a cross country running coach. Time and time again, students would tell me that they could not run long distances. My response was that they couldn’t because they had never trained and had never been coached. Those bold enough to try often found that they could run a 5k, and many found that they got to a point where they really enjoyed a good run with friends. Many students and parents cringe at the thought of being away from home for 5 or 6 weeks, especially without their phone… “won’t I miss out on so much?” But those bold enough to step out in faith and attend Royal Servants find that often the things they were concerned with missing are the things by summer's end that they are glad they missed. With coaching and encouragement, they have learned to attend to Jesus and the rich feast of his Word and to engage in meaningful relationships and work. It is our prayer that these students, so gifted and dynamic, will continue to attend to Jesus and feast on His Word for the rest of their lives, that the world would know that Jesus is LORD because of them.

Colossians 3:1-4

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

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Matt Swanson

Costa Rica Trip Leader