THE QUICK SUMMARY

For Christ-followers living in an increasingly complicated world, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed and unsure of how to live a life of intention and meaning. Where do we even begin?

In The Ministry of Ordinary Places, Shannan Martin offers a surprisingly simple answer: uncover the hidden corners of our cities and neighborhoods and invest deeply in the lives of people around us. She walks us through her own discoveries about the vital importance of paying attention, as well as the hard but rewarding truth about showing up and committing for the long haul, despite the inevitable encounters with brokenness and uncertainty.

With transparency, humor, heart-tugging storytelling, and more than a little personal confession, Martin shows us that no matter where we live or how much we have, as we learn what it is to be with people as Jesus was, we’ll find our very lives. The details will look quiet and ordinary, and the call will both exhaust and exhilarate us. But it will be the most worth-it adventure we will ever take. 

A SIMPLE SOLUTION 

According to author Shannon Martin, as Christ-followers we are called to be long-haul neighbors committed to authenticity and willing to take some risks. Our vocation is to invest deeply in the lives of those around us, devoted to one another, physically close to each other as we breath the same air and walk the same blocks.

Our purpose is not so mysterious after all. We get to love and be deeply loved right where we’re planted, by whomever happens to be near.

We will inevitably encounter brokenness we cannot fix, solve, or understand, and we’ll feel as small, uncertain, and outpaced as we have ever felt. But we’ll find our very lives in this calling, to be among people as Jesus was, and it will change everything.

In a world that pushes us toward bigger, better, more costly and refined, seeing the humble as radiant is an act of holy resistance. Jesus dealt in seeds and sails. He spoke through dust and sermonized in spit. Set against a backdrop of faithlessness, lawlessness, and low-grade despair, he brought faith and healing through the overlooked, unspectacular elements of everyday life. He’s right here, in every dull, dusty corner, and even more, in every one of us bumbling, regular, milk-mustached kids trying to masquerade as big shots.

Simply put, we cannot love what we do not know. We cannot know what we do not see. We cannot see anything, really, until we devote ourselves to the lost art of paying attention.

Living an on-the-ground, available-and-engaged, concerned-for-our-neighbors lifestyle doesn’t necessarily require moving, downsizing, changing jobs, or adopting a child. It only asks that we view our immediate world with fresh eyes to see how we might plant love with intention and grit. This means we’ll have to unlearn what we’ve wrongly absorbed about who people are and what they deserve. We’ll have to scratch through the surface and get down to the roots of the stories playing out in our midst. We will have to choose to widen our circle and allow our lives to become tangles up with those around us.

God is calling to us from the world we’re in. He wants to meet us right here.

“Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends,” wrote Henri Nouwen. Rathe than spending all our time with those whose lives mirror ours so closely that all conversation distills into small talk, we are invited to widen our circles and hush our mouths. Do we dar imagine the possibilities?

Eugene Peterson wrote of our need to listen and wait, attend and adore. We unite as we listen, yielding the floor to another. We pay attention, fully present, when our lips aren’t moving and our minds alert. 

Open your windows. Turn off your phone. Walk the back alleys of your neighborhood. You live in the country? The suburbs? It might require a drive up the road, that’s all. Go wherever life thrums and pops, the place common sense most loudly warns you to avoid.

Go there. Sit down. Lean in. Resist the urge to posture or interject. Listen without an agenda. Just wait and see where it takes you.

Shannon Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking Up to God’s Goodness Around You

A NEXT STEP

Author Shauna Pilgreen believes that once you’re a citizen of a town, you share the streets with your neighbors. Tourists just borrow them. So, paying attention means doing a deeper work with your fellow neighbors. You can learn so much more from walking your streets than driving through them. You see details and make discoveries.

Use the following ideas from Pilgreen as a foundation to build your “art of paying attention.”

Walk to Learn

Go for a walk. Observe the people. The buildings. Imagine what’s taking place inside. What shoes do you have that can get you through your town? Wear the soles out of them. Make them your Ebenezer stones, a physical reminder of a spiritual truth.

Walk to Celebrate

Breathe in what gives life and exhale what gives thanks. Celebrate not only what you have in common but your differences – especially your differences. Find your favorite places to walk. Walking, especially among natural beauty, can lower stress, give you fresh air to breathe in, and make you more attuned to your surroundings – and the people in them.

Walk to Pray

Set foot on the places He’s giving you. Prayer walking is a powerful tactic for every dweller. What part of your city need’s God’s intervention? Where do you sense darkness – and opportunity? Prayer walking merges “me” and “them.” It allows us to walk toward compassion.

What other areas of walking can you identify that will help you pay attention to God working around you?