In my previous blog post about the 24-7 Prayer Gathering 2022 I mentioned how helpful I’d found the talk by Tyler Staton.
Tyler is the lead pastor of Bridgetown Church in Portland, Oregon, and national director of 24-7 Prayer USA. He’s written a couple of books, but the one I want to review and recommend here is called “Praying like Monks, Living like Fools…an invitation to the wonder and mystery of prayer”.
“Prayer is the source of Jesus’s most astonishing miracles and the subject of Jesus’ most audacious promises, and yet, most people – even most Bible-believing Christians – find prayer to be boring, obligatory, disappointing, confusing, or, most often, all of the above. Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools is your invitation to trade your conceptions and misconceptions about prayer for prayer in its purest form: a vital, sustaining, powerful connection with God that is more real and alive than you could have ever imagined.
From the resources page on the 24-7 Prayer web site.
You may be thinking, “Another book on prayer…do we really need it?” I guess every book on prayer encourages you to see a new angle on a familiar practice, and I found this one particularly helpful at this time and at this stage in my walk with Jesus.
I think this quote pretty much sums up the main themes of the book:
“What if at the centre of your every day, you placed communion with the God who personifies love. What if the waking thoughts of your day were spent dreaming with God – dreams as big as “kingdom come” and ordinary as “daily bread”? What if you slipped away at midday for a few minutes or a few seconds, because every other force is vying for your attention but only Jesus has your heart? What if you were to spend the commute home or the final moments before you fall asleep at night recounting the magnificent and miniscule ways you saw heaven pierce earth today? What if your day belonged to the God who loves you without needing to control you, the God whose chief concern is your deepest well-being, who is gently shaping you into the very best version of yourself and who breathes into your exhaustion with abundant life? What if fidelity to Jesus is everything, and the way you choose it is as simple as prayer?”
“Praying like Monks…”pages 199-200
The book is full of stories about his own and others experiences of a developing relationship with God through prayer…it is not a lot of theory or religious good ideas.
He begins by taking an honest look at the fears that cause us to struggle with prayer, then moves on to discuss reasons why actually praying might be the way to allay those fears, as we get to know and trust the God we pray to a bit better.
There are chapters on prayer posture, adoration, confession, intercession, and petition that come across as a breath of fresh air from familiar subjects. There are chapters on prayer as participation, praying for the lost, and silence and persistence. The final chapter, “Rebellious Fidelity – unceasing prayer” focuses on the practice of a 3-times-a-day prayer rhythm, which is really helpful in its simplicity (speaking as one for whom a Daily Office has been part of my prayer life for many years).
Each chapter ends with helpful and practical suggestions for how to get into the kind of prayer that the chapter has discussed.
The book ends with a vision and a dream, and with a look at what Jesus is doing now…praying to the Father for us.
“I have a dream for the church. We will become houses of prayer again. None of us want to spend the rest of our lives cloistered off in socially irrelevant, spiritually dry weekly meetings. What’s the alternative? The radical reprioritisation of prayer. And if the cost is foolishness, count me in.”
I’ve just started to read “Gatecrashing” by Brian Heasley. It’s the story of 24-7 Prayer’s work in Ibiza.
On page 2, Brian tells the story of how a prayer meeting was interrupted by “God”…looking surprisingly like a bar worker who’s looking for help for a guy who’s sitting in a doorway, very drunk and covered in puke.
After sorting him out and helping him back to his hotel, Brian reflects on the experience.
Maybe when we pray, when we ask him to act, maybe God is saying to us, “I’m really sorry to interrupt your meeting, but we’ve got a guy out here who needs some help.” Maybe he is saying it to his church. Maybe it is his call to prayer and mission.
24-7 Prayer has always been about prayer. The clue’s in the name. But if you’ve read a book called Red Moon Rising or done time in a prayer room or spent time around the 24-7 Prayer community you’ll know that 24-7 Prayer is about the kind of prayer that somehow always leads to mission. It’s funny how prayer so often seems to do that…Prayer will inevitably lead to God interrupting our meetings and leading us out into a world that is in need of him.
“Gatecrashing” by Paul Heasley, p2-3
Lord Jesus, keep me open today to being interrupted and help me to notice when you’re doing it…I don’t want to miss out on serving you and sharing your love and help with others.
I was listening to the latest episode of Cris Rogers excellent “Making Disciples – The Podcast” and that quote made me think.
Over-familiarity and taking God for granted are all too easy…we need to pay attention to maintaining and growing the relationship as we would with any others. Cris’s podcast is about 10 ways we can get our New Year off to a good start…give it a listen.
I may have previously mentioned in my Blog that I like to change the tools I use for prayer and Bible study on a fairly frequent basis, to keep them fresh. I am currently using the weekly Podcast as part of my relationship building habit, along with a prayer App, and am hoping to also be using a new commentary to help me read the Bible (once I have a copy!). I thought I’d share them here for you to check out if you want to.
Firstly, the Podcast. There’s a new episode every Monday, it’s intended to make faith accessible and practical, and although targeting new followers of Jesus it’s a great refresher and motivator for people who’ve been followers for some time too. You can listen to it on your favourite Podcast app…details are here.
The App is Lectio 365, from 24/7 Prayer and CWR. As the title suggests, it helps to engage in a brief, prayerful reading of scripture each day of the year. It is available for both Apple and Android platforms…more info here.
Nicky Gumble has for a number of years been publishing a helpful daily commentary to accompany the NIV Bible in One year. Available as an app, a daily email or a recently published book this is a great way of getting more from the Bible passages for the day from one of the people behind the Alpha Course.
Pilgrim Traveller 