Tyler Staton on Combatting Idolatry Through the Nazarite Vow & Becoming A Prayerful Disciple Who Cultivates A Prayerful Church
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Tyler Staton and Jason connect for our first episode of 2022! Tyler is the Lead Pastor of Bridgetown Church in Portland and recently transitioned to that role, transitioning from Oaks Church in Brooklyn. In this conversation, they talk about that move, Tyler’s ministry journey that started in his teens, and the work he is doing with 24/7 Prayer in the US.
Tyler is deeply passionate about prayer and feels called to prophetically embody a life of abiding to his community. His love of communion with God began in his teens when his youth pastor challenged him to walk his middle school early each morning to pray for his classmates. Over time, he began a club to gather students and teach, and soon 10% of his classmates had become Christians. This brought his faith to life as he saw God’s power on display through his simple acts of prayer.
After going to Bible school in Chicago, he became a youth pastor and eventually transitioned to New York where he ministered to primarily low-income, immigrant families. After several years in that formative environment, he planted a church in Williamsburg that eventually became Oaks Church. He shares about shaping a culture of prayer there through communal and individual practices. Like a marathon where you have both stretch runs and recovery ones, he says training ourselves to prayer can be effective if done similarly. Larger events and seasons throughout the year of dedicated prayer stretched people’s prayer muscles, which then made the regular everyday prayer practice more vibrant. People who had never prayed for an hour would learn to love spending longer periods of time with Jesus!
His heart for prayer has led him to write an upcoming book on that topic and also brought him to a leadership position with 24/7 Prayer as their new National Director for the US. Now at Bridgetown, he hopes to move the community deeper into the practices of prayer both as a church family and as individuals. We hope this conversation can inspire your leadership and personal life of prayer! Enjoy!
Tyler Staton
Tyler is the Lead Pastor of Bridgetown Church in Portland, Oregon. Previously, he served as co-founder and Lead Pastor of Oaks Church Brooklyn. His passion is a community that is unexplainable apart from the love and power of God. Tyler is also the author of Searching for Enough and is currently working on a second book, this one on the topic of prayer.
He lives in Portland with his wife, Kirsten, and their two sons, Hank and Simon.