Rhythms and Words of Prayer

I’ve been reading a book over the past couple of months called Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools by Tyler Staton. It’s a 10-chapter book on prayer that dives into the different facets of prayer and provides exercises to help you practice each facet in your own life. 

I heard Staton speak eight or nine years ago at a college chapel service. At the time, he was the pastor of a trendy evangelical church in Brooklyn, New York, but he was different from the other trendy evangelical church pastors I’d heard speak at chapel. He was young and hip, but his message was timeless and relevant.  

In December of last year, I was asked to take over as the prayer team leader at my church. I’d been on the prayer team for about six months, which meant, in its most basic form, I stood at the front of the sanctuary on Sunday mornings and made myself available to pray for people during the invitation at the end of the service. While I enjoyed serving in this capacity, I didn’t feel ready to lead a team of people, let alone in a ministry setting. 

So I set about looking for resources to help me feel more prepared for my new responsibility. I was delighted to find Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools in the religion section at my local Barnes & Noble. Remembering I enjoyed Staton’s talk from chapel nearly a decade prior, I purchased the last copy and started reading. 

It took me nearly four months to finish the book. Not because it was dry but because I wanted to take time to digest each chapter before moving on to the next. This isn’t a full book review, so I’m not going to go into the details of each chapter, but I will focus on the last one, which I read earlier this week. 

Rhythms of Prayer

Chapter 10 focuses on unceasing prayer and rhythms of prayer.

Staton explained that “for Jesus and his earliest followers, communion with God marked the passage of time. Everything else happened a certain distance before or after prayer. Everything else was prioritized around prayer rather than prayer fitting in around competing priorities. Communion with the God of love was the center of life, the anchor for their every day” (Staton, p. 199). 

The early church, like their Jewish ancestors, would pray roughly three times a day. They would begin their day with God, check in with Him midday, and then close out the day with prayer. 

Most evangelicals I know, including myself, don’t ascribe to such a rigorous prayer schedule. I grew up praying before meals and before bed, which felt more like checking something off a to-do list rather than spending time with the God of love. And I worry that implementing a prayer routine would do the same thing. 

However, we see that Jesus followed a prayer routine in his own life. He would regularly withdraw from everyday life to spend time with God. In addition to the prescribed times for prayer, he also prayed spontaneously, as seen when he was praying in Gethsemane the night before his crucifixion. 

Words of Prayer

Another point Staton touches on in this chapter is in regard to spontaneous vs. scripted prayers such as the Lord’s Prayer. 

Growing up in the Southern Baptist church, we didn’t pray prescribed prayers (often called “book” or rote prayers) other than the Lord’s Prayer. I’m not sure why, though I would wager it has something to do with the Catholic affinity for rote prayers. Nonetheless, I grew up with a couple of book prayers passed down from my mom’s Lutheran upbringing, and I’ve always appreciated them. 

In my experience, Matthew 6:7 has been used to condemn book prayers: 

“And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathens do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.” (NKJV)

The words “vain repetitions” have often been weaponized by evangelicals to shame high church denominations that rely on liturgy for worship. Turning to a prayer book, using a tool like prayer beads, or attending a liturgical worship service would have been unconscionable to me a few years ago. 

Newer translations do not use the term “vain repetitions.” Rather, they say not to babble in prayer—pray from the heart. Don’t just make noise to be heard. 

I could write a lot more about this topic, and I wish Staton’s chapter had been longer (guess I’ll need to find another book to read), but he shared an illustration that I think sums up how Christians should view the two types of prayer. 

Prayer is like jazz music. Jazz is incredibly spontaneous and emotional, much like spontaneous prayers. But jazz musicians spend hours and hours learning how to play their instruments and read music before they go off script. In the same way, Christians can use rote prayers to learn how to pray. Having the structure of prayer (prescribed by Christ himself!) dedicated to memory will make our spontaneous prayers that much sweeter.