Episode 411: Prayer as a Family with Tyler Staton

Raising Boys & Girls

In this episode, Tyler Staton joins David Thomas to discuss his new book, 'After Amen,' and how his journey through advanced-stage cancer re

Key takeaways

• Tyler Staton wrote poetry during chemotherapy to process his advanced-stage cancer diagnosis.
• The book 'After Amen' is a 50-day devotional combining scripture with original poetry.
• One creative prayer method for kids involves using jelly beans in a jar to track requests and thanks.
• Staton uses a color-coded 'prayer tree' to help his children visually represent different types of prayer.
• The author found that praying for playfulness rather than just patience helped him connect better with his sons.

Main topics

• Prayer and parenting
• Cancer survival and faith
• Creative spiritual disciplines for children

Notable quotes

God, please let your grace outrun my failures as a father.

Conclusion

The episode provides actionable spiritual tools for families while off

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:08) Hey friends, welcome to the Raising Boys and Girls podcast. I'm Sissy Goff. Speaker 3 (0:13) And I'm David Thomas, and we're so glad you've joined us for this conversation. Let's dive in. Speaker 3 (0:25) As we've been camping out this month and talking about grief and loss, I was so grateful for Tyler's honesty around their family's journey with cancer and talking about the role of prayer in that and how much a parenting just involves holding things that we can't control. So lean into this really rich conversation Speaker 1 (0:47) with Tyler. Speaker 3 (0:49) Tyler, I am so grateful to get to share this conversation with you. We were just talking before we hit record about having missed each other when you were last in town and promoting your newest book that I'm super excited to talk about today, but really grateful for your work. Thankful to get to share time and conversation with you today and for folks who may be new to your work. Would you first just describe kind of the heart behind this book? Talk a little bit about that and what led you to explore prayer just in such a personal and honest way. Speaker 1 (1:25) Yeah, I've had the great honor of alongside pastoring a church in Portland, Oregon, I've gotten to put four books into the world. And I'm someone that loves words and loves to read. And so that feels... like a great, great honor to get to contribute to the literary world in some way. But my latest book is titled After Amen, and it is a 50-day devotional book through John's gospel. But it is unique among devotional books in that each of those 50 days is highlighted by both the scripture reading and a poem that I've written, which is a, it's a prayerful poem, much like in the tradition of the biblical Psalms. And that, I've read poetry for a long time, but I had not written any poetry until I went through an advanced stage cancer diagnosis very suddenly in my mid-30s. I'm 38 now. I was 36 when I went through chemotherapy. But I went through cancer at the most advanced stage, which for me manifested itself in multiple tumors in my abdomen. And that put me through the most intensive chemotherapy treatment of anyone in the practice that I was a part of. And so I was just really knocked out for about six to 12 months. And during that time, I began writing poetry each day as a form of prayer. It was the most helpful. Wait for me to process what I was going through and to try to maybe find God in each day or be found by God in each day. And then the book was an accident. My publisher came to me and said, hey. We'd like to publish a book of poetry just to try to fill our literary catalog. And I know you're one of our authors that likes to read. I'm curious if you know any poets. And I did connect them to a few folks who I love to read. But maybe, I don't know, two to three months later, I said, hey, you know, incidentally, I've written a few poems. They're just in my prayer journals. I didn't intend for anyone to ever read them. My wife's read a few of them. But I processed with my wife, my mentor, and Jesus, if I should, you know, is this a secret thing I should never share with another soul? And I shared it with my publisher, and one thing led to another, and this book got put into the world. Speaker 3 (4:17) Well, to use your words, we're grateful for that accident of a book. Really grateful. Speaker 1 (4:22) Yeah. Speaker 3 (4:24) And I'm excited to unpack with you in a few minutes just more of that part of your story. So thank you for being willing to share that. And I actually want to read something from the introduction of the book that I loved. I think ushers in our next question in a great way. So you wrote in the introduction, this book is for anyone honest enough to admit that they have prayed like a saint moments before losing their temper with a child. You go on to say, but if you, like me, find that your best intention ever outpaces your actual life. And I love the invitation that you give to parents through those words. And so I'd love to ask you, just thinking about a parent engaging this book, what would you hope they could experience in that generous invitation? Speaker 1 (5:17) Well, you know, it's unique because I'm the father of three boys. At the time of this recording, they are nine, eight, and four, Hank, Simon, and Amos. Speaker 1 (5:32) This book is primarily about, like one of my neighbors who does not yet follow Jesus was asking me what it was about and how I described it. I said, it's a book of prayers that are mainly about my struggle to love the people that I love the most. And so I think the book is mainly about my struggles to be the kind of husband I want to be and the kind of father that I want to be. And my wrestle with the patterns in me that make expressing the love that I feel toward my children a two steps forward, one step back kind of journey for me. And I think that... Speaker 1 (6:21) The most heartbreaking regular occurrence in my life is when I see something come out of me. that affects one of my children in a negative way that I wouldn't want to affect them, whether it's anger comes out of me that makes one of them afraid, a comment comes out of me more sharply than it should have that I see shame or the impulse to hide come across one of my little boy's faces. I just think to see the sin that is in me, Hurting the people that I love the most is incredibly humbling and very difficult. And as a parent, just my most frequent prayer in general is, God, please let your grace outrun my failures as a father. And I think that it should be stated, I think on paper, I'm a pretty good dad. I'm coaching the Little League baseball team. They all love me and like being around me. I'm not abusive in any way. I think I don't mean that in an extreme way. I just mean in a day in and day out way. Man, it is so hard to love the people well that we love the most. And so I think this book, I hope, is an honest invitation to receive the grace of God. As a parent. Thank you. Speaker 3 (8:02) Let my grace, let your grace outrun my failures. I love those words. Tyler, I love it. And the invitation that you wrap around that prayer, I think, within this book. So thinking about parents who want to cultivate prayer in their homes, but feel unsure of even where to start. What are some simple, authentic ways that families could begin practicing prayer together? Speaker 1 (8:27) Well, you know, I only have my trial and error experience with my own children. But I would say there's been a couple of things that I have discovered have been effective with my kids. One is, I think that when we think about prayer, it is probably the greatest, unmissed opportunity for creativity in the whole of the Christian church. If you go to any Protestant evangelical Christian church in America, there's going to be an extraordinary amount of creativity put into musical worship. And then the prayer meeting is going to be like a couple of