Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools by Tyler Staton
Week 1: Introduction — The Gift Nobody Wants
Read the Introduction of Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools. Primary passages: Matthew 6:5–13; Luke 11:1–4.
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Staton opens by naming the gap most of us feel but rarely admit — that prayer is supposed to be the center of the Christian life, and yet it so often feels like the most burdensome obligation on our list. Come to these questions willing to be honest about where you actually are.
Discussion Questions
8 questions1.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?
4.The disciples watched Jesus pray before every major moment of his ministry, and their request — "Lord, teach us to pray" — was not a beginner's question but an urgent one. What do you think they saw in Jesus's prayer life that made them want what he had?
a.What have you seen in someone else's prayer life that made you want more of it?
b.What has made you settle for less?
5.Staton frames the book not as a manual for mastering prayer but as an invitation to inhabit a relationship. How does that framing either relieve pressure or create a different kind of challenge for you?
6.Think about the various "roadblocks" to prayer Staton hints at in the introduction — unanswered prayers, feelings of unworthiness, distraction, doubt. Which roadblock has been most persistent in your own life?
7.The 24/7 Prayer movement, which Staton helps lead, is built on the conviction that unceasing prayer is not just for monasteries — it is for ordinary people in ordinary places. Does that conviction feel inspiring or unrealistic to you? What would need to change in your daily life for it to feel possible?
8.Before going further into the book, write down one honest sentence that describes what you hope to find or experience by the end of this study. Share it with your group if you feel comfortable, and return to it in Week 12.
Closing Prayer
Lord, we come to you not as polished pray-ers but as people who have found prayer confusing, boring, or obligatory more times than we want to admit. We are not here because we have it figured out — we are here because we are desperate and because somewhere, beneath all the noise, we believe you are real and you are listening. Teach us to pray, the way the disciples asked you to. Not a technique, but a relationship. Open something in us over these weeks that we cannot open ourselves. Amen.
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