Mindful Listening Event

The Baugh Center for Baptist Leadership invites lay leaders from your church to a one-day training event for deacons and care leaders in local congregations. We will gather at Northside Drive Baptist Church on Saturday, November 7, 2026, from 11-3 to consider how our practices of attention and mindfulness can serve our community as we have conversations of care. We are inviting churches to consider sending a cohort of leaders for this training so that care teams can share in this opportunity and continue their conversations beyond this one day. We invite you to consider the role in your congregation that would most benefit from this opportunity.  The cost is $15 per participant and will include registration, lunch, and childcare as needed.

Rev. Wyatt Miles will lead this training based on his work as a Board Certified Chaplain at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. Wyatt has also served as a Baptist pastor at a church in Virginia for seven years, and is currently an ordained deacon at his church here in Atlanta. He will lead this session out of this combination of experiences and his own studies into the impact of mindfulness practices on attention and care.

Participants will be invited to pay attention to how their attention comes and goes in a conversation or setting and learn practices to focus and offer intentional care in spiritual care conversations. This is pivotal skill as we are called to care for our communities and listen as they share through their grief, pain, or crisis. Here is some of what Wyatt has shared about the content for this event:

What we need are opportunities to slow our brains down. In a world where everything feels like an existential threat, we need to create conditions for psychological safety, to recognize that we are not in immediate danger in every conversation, and that relationships are a gift from God. We are made for community, we are made for each other.

In this training we will discuss the power of presence for establishing and deepening relationships, for where “two are three are gathered” in Jesus’ name, Christ is present (Matthew 18:20). We will share about the power of mindfulness, prayer, and spirituality for maintaining the capacity for presence in high stress situations. We will share insights and skills gained during through chaplaincy education and practice.

Further, we are pleased to host this event alongside Cooperative Baptist Fellowship as well as Georgia Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. We share with their belief that this event will equip lay leaders for the work of community and deepen our ability to hear and care for one another.