After Amen, by Tyler Staton   

'This superb 50-day devotional is an honest and vulnerable guide to exploring what it means to both slow down and seek to root our prayer life in reality'

 

After Amen - 50 Days of Poetry and Prayer
By Tyler Staton  
Hodder & Stoughton 
ISBN: 978-1399833561
Reviewed by:  Ed Jones

The idea of 50 days of poetry and prayer could appeal to us as something that might supplement an existing daily rhythm of spending time and hanging out with Jesus. It could be something that we see as a potential resource, from which we might be able to take elements and use within whatever form of ministry we might be involved in. It could be the author that grabs us and that’s why we pick it up and give a read.

I was neither expecting nor prepared though for both the honesty in terms of the journey that is shared within its pages, but also the depth to which it goes. Tyler Staton at the beginning of the book writes the following:

The deepest question of the praying person goes something like this, 

‘How does my life bear the fruit of prayer after I say, ‘Amen’?’” 

What a superb question, and one that my guess is we can so easily go, “of course, what an important and necessary question though”, but then without meaning to, simply let our days and life pull us onward into the next thing.

This doesn’t read like a devotional book full of entries simply pulled together to create another publication. Instead, born out of his own personal rhythms and habits, what Staton offers is a guide to exploring what it means to both slow down, but also seek to root our prayer life in reality. Each of the 50 days follow a similar pattern, a Bible reading (each week taking a passage from John’s gospel), a poem, a reflection, finishing with a prayer.

It’s not we might say an original idea - how we might see our prayer life live, after we have said amen - but it is one that is so helpful to both be reminded of and challenged over. One that needs to permeate our prayer life and all that flows out of it. 

As with his other writings, in particular Praying like Monks, Living like Fools, Staton’s style is one of honesty and vulnerability. He comes across as someone who is genuinely working out what it means to follow Jesus, has not got it all together, but seeking to begin a fresh each day do the best he can by God’s grace.

The book is easy to read and I particularly like sitting within a particular passage over a number of days, looking at it bit by bit. It strikes a great balance between a verse a day or spending seemingly months within one passage or section. 

Formatting wise, initially I was a little thrown that you have day one and then you begin the first week of seven days, but that is a minor thing in what is a superb devotional resource and one I highly recommend. 

 

Ed Jones is the pastor of Battle Baptist Church in East Sussex and Chaplain to Battle Town Football Club