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For Tyler Staton, lead pastor of Bridgetown Church, life is all about relationships. He knows life is at its most full and beautiful when centered around prayer and shared deeply through intimate connection with God’s people and with God himself through the Holy Spirit. His latest book, “The Familiar Stranger,” explores this connection with the Holy Spirit as the only way to experience true, authentic spirituality. He’s also the author of “Searching for Enough” and “Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools.”

Today, Tyler’s getting honest about how he keeps his body and mind healthy, his relational limitations and the secret to experiencing a “fully alive” kind of spirituality. Keep reading to also learn about the people and books that have impacted him most and where God may be leading him next.

The following is a transcript of a live interview. Responses have been edited and condensed for brevity and clarity.

QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT

There’s much more to food than palate and preference. How does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind the web bio?

My go-to meal would be some type of Mediterranean Mezze feast, which reveals that I’m pretty health conscious. I like to feel good. I want to make sure that the food helps me in that endeavor, not hurts me. I also prefer to get a little bit of everything before chomping down on one thing. I want to taste everything. Probably one of the things I find most difficult is when I’m out to eat with people I don’t know very well, restraining myself from asking for a bite of whatever they ordered. My wife lived in Athens, Greece, for a year, and I got to visit her there and get to know Greek food quite well and, subsequently, Israeli food and Lebanese food. I’m just absolutely in love with what that part of the world is doing with food. Who knew so much could be done with chickpeas?

QUESTION #2: REVEAL

We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So what are yours? What so-called “nonspiritual” activities do you love and help you find spiritual renewal? 

I love to run. I feel like I see the world most truly and pray my best prayers while running. There’s something about what moving the body, even psychologically speaking, does to free the mind. That helps me articulate myself to God most honestly and see the world with the most gratitude. 

The other is that I love to read fiction and memoir. Both are mediums I use to cultivate compassion because they allow me to enter into someone else’s story for a prolonged period of time and grow in empathy for the twists and turns their life has taken — whether that person is a fictional character dreamed up in someone else’s imagination or the writer sharing their nonfiction story.

QUESTION #3: CONFESS

Every superhero has a weakness. Every human too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite, and how do you hide it?

I have a pattern in my life of prioritizing productivity over people — despite believing life is fundamentally about relationships and the most gratifying way to live is the most deeply relational way. I deal with it by attempting to submit myself to my relational limits. In particular, as the pastor of a somewhat sizable church, it’s very easy to become spread very relationally thin, so I tend to be really honest about how many people I can actually know and be known by deeply. I’m also selective about who those people are and really prioritize them, including by entrusting my kryptonite to those relationships. I choose to be honest about my weakness and ask the people who love me most to help curb me in the direction that I think is most joyful.

QUESTION #4: FIRE UP

Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your obsession? And why should it be ours?

My obsession is closing the gap between the rumor of life with God on the pages of Scripture and the experience of life with God in the everyday believer. I believe that the Bible is not a greatest-hits record of God’s most decisive acts in the lives of others, but rather, it’s an invitation to experience the very same life you’re in now. The conduit of that experience is the person of God named the Holy Spirit. (I write about this concept in my latest book, “The Familiar Stranger.”) So that’s my obsession, and I think it should be yours because if your primary experience with Scripture is to get it known rather than get it lived, I would say that you’re leaving a lot on the table that Jesus talked quite a lot about. And there’s no reason not to take every drop of life that a God of grace wants to give you.

When it comes to why so many of us Christians today default toward getting it known rather than getting it lived, the reason is complex, but I’ll name a couple of key ingredients. One would be that the modern West is more of a cognitive society, so we are more comfortable learning through purely cognitive means than learning through experience. A second ingredient is that we fear disappointment. I think we find a version of following Jesus that leaves a lot on the table but works for us. We fear giving God enough of our expectations that he could really let us down, and we fear the questions we’d have to face if that were to happen.

QUESTION #5: BOOST

Cashiers, CEOs, contractors or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?

I wrote a chapter in my book about how the ministry of the Holy Spirit is fundamentally creative and not controlling. No matter our vocation, our work is often controlling, which can be measured by doing the work for the reward of what it could win us rather than joy in the craft itself. How controlling our work is can also be measured by whether we do it to try to get something from others or as an act of selfless love offered freely to others.

On the other hand, you have creativity. For example, think of an artist. What’s fascinating is that a painter can get lost in their work to the point that they forget to eat lunch. A whole day may pass, and they’re still messy in the studio when they say, “My goodness, it’s getting dark and the sun is setting!” An artist never paints for the gallery showing. They paint for the joy of the craft. In fact, when most artists finish a painting, they spend very little time gazing at their work. Instead, they quickly move on to the next thing because it’s about freely offering a gift and the joy of doing so. The joy is in the creative act, not in the accomplishing of the creative act. That can be applied to any industry and any vocation.

So when are you working out of love, through joy, in a way that causes you to lose yourself in the work? That is the Holy Spirit at work — in you. In your vocation.

QUESTION #6: inspire

Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied actions that open our hearts to the presence of God. So spill it, which spiritual practice is working best for you right now?

The downstream spiritual practice where I find the most ease in this season is praying through journaling. That’s where I’m finding ease and connection with God. The spiritual practice I find myself needing and missing the most when I skip it is that of silent or contemplative prayer, which I practice for 10 minutes to begin each day. That’s the most essential practice to me, but it’s not always the easiest one for me to choose.

There are ways in which my personality and the shadow side of it — like the lies of the enemy that are deepest in me — lend themselves to where silence and solitude will always be central spiritual practices for me. However, I do find that I fluctuate in the ease with which I know God’s presence through those practices. One of the greatest barometers of my own spiritual health at any given time is: how quickly am I able to attune to God as I enter into silence? When I’m spiritually healthiest, it’s happening pretty fast. When my rhythms are out of step with my soul, it takes quite a while for me to slow my internal world down enough to be still before God.

QUESTION #7: FOCUS

Our email subscribers get free e-books featuring our favorite resources — lots of things that have truly impacted our faith lives. But you know about some really great stuff too. What are three resources that have impacted you?

The first thing that springs to my mind is a nationwide series of classes that anyone could get into called Bible Study Fellowship. The reason that was impactful to me is that my grandfather, who has now passed, was the teacher of my Bible Study Fellowship class for two years when I was in late elementary school. He taught me about Jesus first and really invested in me. I remember not enjoying Bible Study Fellowship, and I don’t know if the content is impactful for me or others. But the person who walked me through it and the way he loved me and companioned me? That will always be one of the experiences that has most deeply shaped me.

Two books also come to mind. When I was in my late teenage years, I was fascinated and moved to tears at the person of Jesus as I read the book “The Jesus I Never Knew” by Philip Yancey. Jesus captured my imagination and my heart after reading that book. Then in my 20s, I read a book called “Abba’s Child” by Brennan Manning over and over and over again. It talked about the true and false self in a way that allowed me to understand the deepest deceptions that I carried and the patterns that lived within me. As a result, I began to long to be freed from those deceptions and patterns and formulate a pathway where that might be possible.

QUESTION #8: dream

God is continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?

The next book I write will be on the true and false self, which I just mentioned when I talked about the book by Brennan Manning. That’s stirring in me most right now. Also, about a year ago, I began writing poetry as a way of prayer. I began to write poetry as a way of trying to articulate deeply to God, and I’m opening each chapter of that book with a poem I’ve written. That is a medium of creativity that’s become really important to me.

Earlier in this interview, Tyler shared that he sees the work of the Holy Spirit primarily as creative, not controlling. What if we applied that principle to our own lives?

Let’s take a moment to think about our work, our relationships and our spiritual growth. Do we lead with control in those areas? Do we try to manipulate the outcomes of our efforts or the people we love or even God himself with our good deeds?

Now let’s reflect: how would those areas of our lives look different if we led with creativity instead of control — with a love of the journey instead of a fixation on the outcome?

Tyler Staton is the lead pastor of Bridgetown Church in Portland, Oregon, where he lives with his wife Kirsten, and their sons, Hank, Simon and Amos. He is passionate about living prayerfully and relationally. Tyler is the author of three books: Searching for Enough, Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools and The Familiar Stranger.

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