Tyler Sit - Staying Awake: The Gospel for Changemakers

Praise for Staying Awake

This book is so smart, so fresh, and so bursting with energy for Spirit-led justice that it makes me want a do-over at being Christian. As the author says, it is not a self-help book but a community-help book, written as much for those who have lost faith in church as for those who are just discovering what it is really all about. If you, too, want to be part of Gods sacred composting project, you will not find a better gardener for your soul than Tyler Sit.

Barbara Brown Taylor, author of
Holy Envy and Always a Guest

Tyler Sit and his Minneapolis-based congregation are committed to doing church in ways that incarnate the ancient call to act justly, love mercifully, and walk humbly with God. Theyve learned how to stay awake to a world of harsh realities and life-giving possibilities. In this book, Tyler shares what theyve learned. As he says, the church done messed up by falling asleep. We can do church only by keeping our eyes open to what is and what might be. Heres the story of a ministry forged in suffering and joy, one that provides living proof to us that even in the face of death, we have access to a power that forever makes all things new. We need a lot more ministries of this sort, and this book will help shape them.

Parker J. Palmer, author of
Let Your Life Speak , A Hidden Wholeness , Healing the Heart of Democracy , and On the Brink of Everything

Tyler Sit is a craftsman of care, and we are his apprentices. In Staying Awake , Sit artfully shares how he employs the tools of parable-like narratives, lived theology, and nine innovative Christian practices to catalyze change and build God s kin-dom.

Gregory C. Ellison II, founder of
Fearless Dialogues and associate professor of pastoral care and counseling at Candler School of Theology

Tyler Sit doesnt just tell you what he thinks you should believe in order to be the kind of person that practices love-fueled changemaking while staying awake to what needs to be righted in the world; he pastors us through it in the pages of this book.

Micky ScottBey Jones, director of
healing and resilience i nitiatives with
the Faith Matters Network

Staying Awake is a winsome and much-needed guide for anyone seeking to follow Jesus beyond the four walls of a church. Drawing on his experience as a pastor and activist, Tyler Sit presents disciplines that help fan the flame of our faith and keep us engaged in the work of justice in sustainable and impactful ways. This is one of the most practical, thought-provoking, and frankly fun guides for living out the way of Jesus that Ive come across. Christians everywhere need to wrestle with the lessons of this important book!

Brandan Robertson, founder of
the Metanoia Community and author of True Inclusion: Creating Communities of Radical Embrace

Tyler Sit is not afraid of the truth. It takes a unique level of courage and profound love for humanity to teach this intersection of radical Christian hospitality, queerness, and racial justice. This book is a holy disruption in necessary measures for this present moment and those to come.

Gabes Torres, psychotherapist,
singer-songwriter, and organizer

Staying Awake is the perfect antidote to death by doomscrolling. This book is brimming with practical how-tos for resisting evil, injustice, and oppression through life-giving, spirit-nurturing practices. Want to dismantle broken social, political, and economic structures? Rebuild flourishing ecosystems and communities? Tyler joyfully shows the way. I couldn t put it down.

Jenny Phillips, United Methodist minister
and environmental strategist

Having known Rev. Sit for almost a decade, I found that this book reflects Tylers character: funny and perceptive, graceful to a fault, incredibly creative and artistic, and somehow always pulling inspiration out of the avoidable failures of church and society. May we heed the call and respond with urgencyand with dancing.

Jeremy Smith, HackingChristianity.net

With Staying Awake , Tyler Sitchurch planter, missional innovator, and now compellingly honest authorinvites saints and skeptics alike to grasp Christianity from the places where Jesus could so often be found, with the minimized, marginalized, and sidelined. If we let it, this book has the power to wake up the sleepwalking church and send us out with the compassion, clarity, and mission of Jesus. For those who find themselves as guardians of the ways church has always been done, prepare to be uncomfortable. For those who have been so wounded by the church that you wonder if you could ever go back, this book will be a balm to your soul and reintroduce you to a faith that dances, and weeps, and protests. And for those hungry for a glimpse at what the church could become, fasten your seat belt. Youre in for quite a ride!

Mark DeVries, author of
Sustainable Youth Ministry and
cofounder of Ministry Incubators

Rev. Sits book is a call to creative, regenerative, and healing Christian ministry. Through poetry, cartoons, testimonies, biblical study, raw stories from the church, the streets, and the garden, he provides a vision for Christian leadership grounded in a gospel of freedom. He leads readers to a more expansive vision for an anti-racist, inclusive church. He also walks alongside the reader as they unlearn and piece together their own journey toward a life that works for the liberation of all people and the planet.

Patrick B. Reyes, author of
Nobody Cries When We Die: God, Community, and Surviving to Adulthood and senior d irector of
learning design at the Forum for Theological Exploration

In his book Staying Awake , Tyler Sit invites us into a faith that is real and messy and gritty and honest. When we enter his wordsand thats what we re invited to do: enter his wordswe cant help but experience clean air in the midst of a landscape of suffocating smog. Drawing from the truth of a radical gospel, he reminds us that we are all invited to pay attention, feel, reflect, connect, give, act, and love. May it be so, Tyler! May it be so.

Lisa Greenwood, vice president for leadership ministry at the Texas Methodist Foundation

In Staying Awake , Tyler Sit refashions ancient spiritual practices into fresh, radically inclusive, and transformative lived actions for those who show up and stay awake in justice spacesand for those who want to show up and stay awake. A must-read for those striving for a better world.

Curtiss Paul DeYoung, CEO of Minnesota Council of Churches

C opyright 2021 by Tyler Sit

A ll rights reserved. For permission to reuse content, please contact
Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, www.copyright.com .

A ll scripture quotations unless noted otherwise are taken from the Common English Bible, copyright 2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

P roofreaders: Kristen Hall-Geisler, Jenn Zaczek, and Sarah Currin
Interior book designer: Olivia Croom Hammerman
www.indigoediting.com

C halicePress.com

P rint: 9780827235526

E PUB: 9780827235533

E PDF: 9780827235540

T o my parents and the people of New City Church

Contents

Chapter 2: Centering
Marginalized Voices