Book Club Questions for Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools

1.Staton describes prayer as simultaneously "the source of Jesus's most astonishing miracles and the subject of Jesus's most audacious promises." Yet most people find it boring, obligatory, or confusing. Which of those three words — boring, obligatory, or confusing — best describes your own relationship with prayer right now, and why?

2.The title *Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools* sets up a creative tension. In your own words, what do you think Staton means by each half of that phrase? What kind of person do you imagine when you picture each one?

3.Staton introduces the idea that prayer is "a search for help outside the self" (a phrase that John Mark Comer calls the most important statement for our time). What does it reveal about us — and about our culture — that we find it so hard to ask for help outside ourselves?

1.Staton argues that the monastic tradition of prayer was never meant to be kept inside monastery walls — it was always meant to spill out into everyday life. Does that idea feel liberating or does it raise questions for you about whether "ordinary" life can really be a place of deep prayer?

2.He draws a distinction between prayer as a *practice* (something we do at scheduled times) and prayer as a *posture* (an ongoing orientation of the heart toward God). In your current life, which one are you better at? Which one do you think you actually need more of?

3.Staton describes the paradox embedded in the phrase "ordinary mystics" — the word "mystic" implies someone extraordinary, while "ordinary" is by definition unremarkable. How does the gospel resolve that paradox? What does it say about who has access to God?

1.Staton opens the chapter by observing how uncomfortable most modern people are with silence — we fill every gap with a screen, a playlist, or a notification. When was the last time you sat in genuine silence? What happened inside you?

2.He draws on the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19 — God was not in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire, but in the "still small voice" (or "sheer silence," as some translations render it). What does it say about God's character that he chose to speak in silence rather than spectacle to a prophet who was burned out and suicidal?

3.Staton distinguishes between *exterior* silence (the absence of noise around us) and *interior* silence (the quieting of the anxious, chattering self within us). Which one is harder for you to achieve? What makes interior silence so difficult?

1.What is the unanswered prayer that has done the most damage to your prayer life? You don't have to share all the details, but name the category — healing, relationships, provision, direction. How long have you been carrying it?

2.Staton identifies unanswered prayer as one of the primary reasons people abandon prayer altogether — not intellectual doubt, but the lived experience of asking and not receiving. Do you agree that this is the deeper wound for most people? Why is experiential disappointment harder to reason through than intellectual objection?

3.He engages Paul's "thorn in the flesh" in 2 Corinthians 12 as a case study in unanswered prayer — Paul asked three times and God said no, offering not removal but grace. What is difficult about God's answer to Paul? What is strangely comforting about it?

1.Staton notes that roughly one-third of the Psalms are laments — the largest single category in Israel's hymnbook. Does that proportion surprise you? What does it say about what God considers acceptable prayer?

2.He makes a distinction between *complaining* and *lamenting* — complaining turns away from God in bitterness, while lament turns toward God in grief. That distinction can feel subtle in practice. How do you know which one you are doing when you bring your pain to God?

3.Psalm 22 opens with "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" — words Jesus quoted from the cross. Staton points out that this is not a faithless cry but a prayer: the psalmist addresses God directly, accuses him, and refuses to let go. What does it teach us that these words are preserved in Scripture and on the lips of the Son of God himself?

1.How have you typically thought about confession — as punishment, as obligation, as relief, or as something else? Where did that understanding come from? How does it compare to the way Staton frames it?

2.Staton draws on the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15) as the paradigm of confession — the son "comes to himself" before he comes home. What does it mean to "come to yourself" before God? Is there a version of yourself you have been running from?

3.He makes a distinction between *guilt* ("I did something wrong") and *shame* ("I am something wrong"). Confession, properly understood, addresses guilt without reinforcing shame. How do you know which one is driving you when you confess? What does the gospel say about both?

1.Who are the people currently on your regular prayer list — if you have one? When you think about praying for others, what emotions come up? Obligation? Love? Uncertainty about whether it actually makes a difference?

2.Staton points to John 17 — Jesus's high priestly prayer — as the model for intercession. Jesus does not simply ask for things on behalf of his disciples; he holds them before the Father with intimate knowledge and love. What does it mean that Jesus is still interceding for you right now (Romans 8:34)? How does that change your posture in prayer?

3.He addresses the underlying theological question many people quietly carry: if God is sovereign and already knows what people need, why does our intercession matter? How does Staton answer that question? Does his answer satisfy you, or does the mystery remain?

1.Think of a prayer you have been praying for a long time — months, years, perhaps decades. What has that long waiting done to your faith? Has it deepened your trust, eroded it, or something more complicated than either?

2.Staton examines Jesus's parable of the persistent widow in Luke 18. The widow keeps coming back to an unjust judge who neither fears God nor cares about people — and her persistence eventually wins. Jesus says God is not like the unjust judge, but then inverts the logic: if even an unjust judge responds to persistence, how much more will a loving Father? What is the parable actually teaching about the nature of God? What is it teaching about the nature of prayer?

3.He engages Jacob's all-night wrestling match with God in Genesis 32 as a portrait of persistent prayer — Jacob refuses to let go until he receives a blessing. Staton points out that Jacob walked away both blessed and limping. What does it mean that genuine, persistent prayer often leaves a mark on us? Is that a warning or an invitation?

1.Staton opens the chapter with an observation about how familiarity kills wonder — we stop seeing what we see every day. Think about something in your life right now — a relationship, a place, a physical sensation — that you have stopped seeing with fresh eyes. What would it take to see it again?

2.He argues that wonder is the natural response of a creature before a Creator — that awe and gratitude are not manufactured emotions but the appropriate posture of a being who did not make itself. Does that framing resonate with you? When did you last feel genuine wonder at the fact that you exist?

3.Staton draws on the Psalms as schoolbooks of wonder — particularly Psalm 8, which moves from the vastness of the cosmos to the smallness of humanity to the astonishing dignity God places on both. What does it do to your prayer life to hold those two realities — your smallness and your belovedness — at the same time?

1.Before reading about the Examen, how did you typically end your days in terms of reflection or prayer? Did you review your day with God, or did the day simply end and the next one begin?

2.Staton introduces the Ignatian Examen — developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola in the sixteenth century — as a structured practice of reviewing each day in five movements: gratitude, review, attention to feelings, confession, and looking forward. What is your initial reaction to a prayer practice this structured? Does structure feel like a container for prayer or a constraint on it?

3.He draws on the story of the road to Emmaus (Luke 24) — two disciples walking away from Jerusalem in disappointment, Jesus walking alongside them unrecognized, their hearts burning within them — as a picture of what the Examen is designed to help us notice. The disciples only recognized Jesus in retrospect, at the breaking of bread. Have you ever recognized God's presence in an experience only after it was over? What made you able to see it in hindsight?

1.Staton's closing chapters move from individual prayer practices to the vision of a community shaped by prayer — like the early church in Acts 2, which devoted itself to prayer as a communal, corporate act. How does your current community reflect that vision? Where does it fall short, and what would need to change?

2.He argues throughout the book that prayer is not primarily about getting things from God but about being transformed by proximity to God. Looking back over the postures of prayer you've studied (silence, lament, confession, intercession, persistence, wonder, the Examen), which one has the most potential to change you over the next year? Why that one?

3.Staton describes the "24/7 prayer room" model — spaces set apart for continuous prayer by a community — as a tangible sign of the church's conviction that prayer moves history. Even if you are not part of a formal prayer movement, what does it mean for you personally to treat prayer as something worth giving your best hours to, not just your leftover minutes?

1.Go back to the sentence you wrote in Week 1 about what you hoped to find or experience by the end of this study. Read it now. How would you answer that hope? What did you find that you were looking for? What did you find that surprised you?

2.Of all the postures of prayer Staton introduces — silence, lament, confession, intercession, persistence, wonder, the Examen — which one has been most meaningful, most challenging, or most transformative for you? What made that posture land so deeply?

3.Has your understanding of prayer — what it is, what it is for, what it does — changed through this study? If so, describe the before and after in your own words. If not, what did the book reinforce or confirm that you already believed?