Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools

In Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools, Tyler Staton offers a theological vision and practical instruction for Christian prayer, organizing his argument around different dimensions of prayer and supporting each with biblical teaching, personal stories, and historical examples. Each chapter concludes with a practice section designed to move readers from consideration to experience.

Writing from Brooklyn during the COVID-19 pandemic, Staton observes that loss of control drives people to seek help outside themselves. He notes a paradox: the same crisis that causes comfortable agnostics to turn to prayer also causes faithful churchgoers to turn away from God. He identifies his central concern as "the mystery in the middle" of prayer: the space between desperate need and miraculous intervention where questions about unanswered prayer and divine silence reside. He addresses three audiences: mature believers, Christians who find God admirable but boring, and skeptics.

The first chapter establishes prayer as something anyone can do by showing up honestly. Staton recounts how, at 13 and skeptical about Christianity, he accepted a mentor's challenge to walk prayer circles around his middle school every summer day, praying for classmates by name. That summer, he fell in love with God, started a before-school outreach group, and by year's end, roughly one-third of his eighth-grade class had come to faith. He identifies common fears that prevent prayer and counters each, arguing that God welcomes raw emotion, as the biblical Psalms demonstrate. Drawing on Dom John Chapman, he concludes: "Pray as you can, and don't try to pray as you can't" (25).

The second chapter establishes stillness as the foundational posture of prayer. Staton contends that the modern Western lifestyle makes stillness nearly impossible, tracing the problem through three inventions: the public clock (1370), the light bulb (1879), and the iPhone (2007). He cites Dallas Willard's assertion that hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life and connects hurry to the biblical fall of humanity, arguing that humans have used constant motion to avoid truth ever since. The practice section instructs readers to begin with two minutes of daily silence, gradually increasing over months.

The third chapter presents adoration, the act of honoring God's greatness, as the first movement of spoken prayer. Staton examines Jesus' model prayer, beginning with "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name," and argues it establishes a threefold foundation of remembering who God is, who you are, and who we are to each other. Calling God "Father" was scandalous in first-century Israel, where the temple taught supreme reverence for a God of power and distance. Jesus made that powerful God knowable. Staton introduces "defiant adoration" through Acts 16, where the apostles Paul and Silas, beaten and chained in prison, sang hymns at midnight. An earthquake followed, prison doors flew open, and the jailer's household came to faith.

The fourth chapter presents confession as the prayer of spiritual excavation. Staton shares personal confessions, including a pornography addiction that fractured trust with his wife, Kirsten. While he found freedom over a decade ago, he now confronts impatience, recounting how he yelled at his toddler son Hank three times on the same day he was to lead a prayer meeting and reduced Kirsten to tears before walking through the church door. He defines sin as good desire channeled through the wrong means and argues that spiritual maturity means more confession, not less. He recounts the Moravian revival at Herrnhut in Saxony, a community founded by Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, where in 1727 a fractured refugee community began spontaneously confessing and forgiving one another during an ordinary meeting. Two weeks later, they started a prayer meeting that lasted 100 years, inadvertently launching the modern missions movement.

The fifth chapter presents intercessory prayer, prayer offered on behalf of others, as the recovery of humanity's God-given authority. Staton opens with his brother-in-law Van, who survived a torn aorta after a nursing student began praying in the operating room during failed surgery. He also tells the story of Monica, a North African mother who prayed nightly for nine years for her rebellious, anti-Christian son. That son, Augustine, eventually surrendered to God in a Roman garden and became one of the most influential theologians in church history. Staton argues that praying "in Jesus' name" was never meant as a closing tagline but as the exercise of recovered authority.

The sixth chapter argues that petition, asking God for both large and small needs, is essential to prayer. Staton recounts internally judging his mother-in-law for praying to find a parking spot, only to realize she had gratitude in her heart while he had bitterness. He argues that Jesus' inclusion of "give us today our daily bread" places petition in everyday life. He examines Exodus 32, where Moses confronted God about destroying Israel and God relented, arguing this shows God is movable and emotionally engaged with prayer.

The seventh chapter introduces prayer as participation in God's already-initiated action, drawing on Eugene Peterson's concept of "the middle voice," a grammatical form in ancient Greek where the subject acts but the action did not begin with them. Staton cites Mother Teresa's Nobel Prize acceptance speech, in which she claimed she and her fellow servants were simply "contemplatives in the heart of the world" (139). He argues that intimacy with God leads to fruitfulness, not the reverse, and that pursuing mission without grounding it in prayer often ends in exhaustion and resentment.

The eighth chapter argues that slow, unglamorous prayer gives birth to new life. Staton opens with D. L. Moody, a nineteenth-century shoe salesman who prayed daily for 100 non-Christian friends; when Moody died, 96 had come to faith, and the remaining 4 were converted at his funeral. He examines the prophet Elijah's story through three scenes: God sending fire from heaven in a dramatic public contest, Elijah's private mountaintop intercession in the posture of a woman in labor as he sent his servant to look for rain seven times, and Elijah's announcement that rain was coming after a three-year drought. Staton argues that God's ultimate dream is not merely a vibrant church but a transformed city, and that laboring prayer connects the two.

The ninth chapter addresses unanswered prayer and divine silence. Staton tells the story of Jenna, a woman who experienced specific miraculous provision but whose sister-in-law Helen died of cancer less than a week before her son Henry's first birthday. A grief counselor asked Jenna what reason God could give that would justify Helen's death. Realizing no reason would suffice, Jenna chose trust: not that God willed the cancer, but that God is good, present in suffering, and will one day make all things new. Staton examines Jesus' words "ask, seek, knock," noting the Greek verb tense implies ongoing action, and argues that God collects every prayer and tear for an ultimate redemption.

The tenth chapter advocates a daily prayer rhythm of morning, midday, and evening. Staton reveals that Jesus' model prayer adapts the Kaddish, an established prayer in ancient Jewish worship, showing that Jesus' prayer life was both deeply personal and rooted in disciplined rhythm. He traces this rhythm through Hebrew tradition, Jesus' own practice, the early church in Acts, and the Didache, the earliest nonbiblical church document. He compares prayer to jazz: Improvisation requires first mastering the instrument.

The epilogue presents King David's tabernacle, a tent sanctuary centered on God's presence and continuous prayer, as a model for the church. After seven years of waiting for the throne, David entered Jerusalem as a dancing priest, singing a psalm that praised God rather than himself. He symbolically placed the ark of the covenant, the sacred chest representing God's presence, on the throne and physically housed it inside a simple tent he pitched in the city center. He hired 288 worship leaders and spent the national treasury on prayer rather than military defense. David's reign became the political high point of Israelite history. Staton calls for churches to become houses of prayer again. Two appendices follow: the first presents Jesus' current heavenly activity as intercession on behalf of believers, and the second provides a practical framework for confession organized into four categories ranging from blatant sins to the deepest disordered trust structures.