The After Sermon /// Why is it important to have prayer become part of a rhythm?

Welcome to The After Sermon by Plum Creek Church.

This bite-sized discussion is where we get to sit down with our communicators and ask a few follow up questions connected to the weekend message, unpack it on a deeper level, and explore how it all relates to our journey of following Jesus more fully.

In this episode of The After Sermon, Daniel sits down with Tomy right after kicking off the Prayer series to explore the deeper why behind prayer before the series moves into the how.

They unpack the tension between knowing something matters—like prayer—and actually building a life around it, and why that gap is often harder to close than we expect. The conversation also leans into the humanity of Jesus, exploring how his rhythm of prayer wasn’t just natural—it was intentional and often costly.

Along the way, they reflect on prayer as the “language of abiding,” what it means to stay aware of God’s presence in everyday life, and why prayer might be less about getting what we want and more about aligning our hearts with God’s. If you’ve ever felt the disconnect between wanting a deeper relationship with God and actually living it out, this conversation helps name that tension and gently reframe it.

This conversation is also available on our YouTube channel along with the full message that this discussion is based on.

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@plumcreekchurch

You can learn more about Plum Creek Church by visiting our website as well.

Website: https://plumcreek.church/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome back to the after sermon where we get to sit down with the weekend communicator. In this case, it's Tommy Cummins. Thanks so much for joining us. Absolutely. We're gonna poke around the edges of the sermon that you just gave, literally, just gave, came upstairs. Thanks so much for joining us. Um, give us just a quick synopsis of kind of how you kicked us off in this prayer series.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Yeah, for sure. So, this very first week, I think it was important for me, and I felt very led to talk about the rhythms of prayer. Because the rest of the series, we're gonna be talking about specific types of prayer. Sure. And so as we get into the how, I think it was important of like, okay, well, A, why do we do this? Because it was a model that Jesus practiced and showed us this deep connection to God the Father, uh, that it was the language of abiding, right? Of staying deeply connected to Him. But then also, if we can start to establish these rhythms, then it makes a whole lot easier as we start to learn the different types of prayer, the like, oh, we're already praying. Now we are just shifting our attention towards how am I praying this week as we're learning these new practices.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Yeah, yeah, I love that. Something I wrote down while you were talking was we know that relationships are not built on the bare minimum. Yeah. And you kind of equated that to busyness. And sometimes this is like, oh, like, yeah, it's like we're just so busy, we're busy. But I loved how you used the word we know, and yeah, we don't always do. Totally, yeah. And so unpack that a little bit more for us. Like, why do we do that? And and how do we kind of reorient our lives?

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Yeah. Well, I think knowing and acting upon that knowledge are two very different things, right? And we've talked before about Dallas Willard and his book Renovation of the Mind. Of um, he used this acronym vision, intention means. And so sometimes when we're looking toward change, if we're struggling to find that change, it's probably because we're missing one of those three elements. Well, I think sometimes the knowledge piece of it is like, no, we get the vision for what would happen if we did this thing, but have we really do we have the intention? Have we made a conscious choice to say, I'm gonna move beyond just agreeing that it's a good thing and saying, I want to make some changes towards, I actually want to practice this thing. And then if we're still struggling, well, then it might be a means thing. Well, I think the rest of this sermon is going to give us the means, the how to do these things. Um, so I think it was really trying to become this call to action of, well, have we made a conscious choice to say, okay, yes, I not only do I see the vision for it, but I'm actually going to move in that direction.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Because we can get crowded out by so many different things where I have the intention all the time to go to the gym or to eat better, whatever it is. But then when you know the time actually comes, it's like, yeah, but sleeping feels really good right now, or whatever else it might be. It means I haven't made a conscious choice to actually start pursuing that thing. Right. You haven't like laid out that plan or fulfilled that intention.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Yeah. No, that's great. Well, okay. So then what was really interesting is that this um idea of knowing led right into this kind of counterpoint, which I love that you hit on was well, of course, it's like if Jesus modeled it, well, he's Jesus. Yeah, it's kind of an unfair advantage. Of course, he's gonna pray, it just makes sense. But can we talk about the humanity of Jesus and how it makes his model actually pretty costly? Totally. It's not just he's not just like I'm walking around and I just love praying. It's like I just it's so natural to me. Like he's still a human at the same time. So talk to me about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Yeah, I mean, we see in different moments the ramifications of how tired Jesus gets throughout the course of his ministry when the storm comes up on the sea. What's Jesus doing? He's asleep on the boat because bro is tired. Like he's there's so many things going on. And yet, even in the midst of that tiredness, he's like, This is too important for me to not do. And so, yeah, we could be like, Well, he has this holy energy or whatever. And it's like, well, hold on. We see moments where that exhaustion gets to him, and and even still, he doesn't lose sight of this this priority of the prayer. And and I I also I use the line in the sermon too that Jesus was unwilling to sacrifice that connection to God the Father on the altar of busyness. Yes, of like, okay, actually, the the busier I'm becoming, the more the demands of my attention are are going up. I have to spend more and more time in prayer with him. And again, that was that was costing him something, it was costing the people around him something. And especially if we are wired like people pleasers, yeah, it can be really hard to say, actually, no, I have to say no to this thing for you, but actually it's better for you in the end, like as a parent, even right. Yeah, like my wife, Minnie, and I, it's really important to us that we prioritize date nights. Right. Um, just because we know we are better parents when we are connected to each other better. Yeah. Um, and yet it's costing our kids some, you know, every other Friday instead of doing family movie night, they're hanging out with the babysitter and we're out on a date. And and yet we believe in the end it's actually a better investment for them as parents that we are better parents when we do that.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

I loved how you kept connecting this idea of like Jesus' responding in prayer, actually an overflow of his prioritization of prayer, which is really interesting. Um, you also said, and you said at the beginning here, prayer is the language of abiding. Yeah. Can you just kind of like walk us through that saying a little bit and and help us understand like how do those two things connect?

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Yeah. So again, as Jesus is inviting us into this deep abiding with Him, with God the Father. Again, apart from me, you can do nothing, he says. And certainly we would say at least nothing of eternal consequence, right? Apart from that deep connection with Jesus. Well, if in our day and age, because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we get this constant connection to God, but how often do we turn our attention toward it? Where when we learn to speak the language of prayer, what we are doing is turning our attention towards the presence of God, actively at work in our lives. And so it becomes this language with which we we can again constantly bring ourselves to the awareness of what God is doing, to a place of deep dependence upon him. And so it becomes this opportunity for us to again do everything out of an overflow of that relationship with him. As Paul says, to pray without ceasing, yeah, doesn't mean we ignore everything else. It just means that we do everything else with prayer on our lips. We do everything else out of an overflow of that prayerful connection. And so with it, becoming again like this language of like a programmer, can't really do a whole lot of programming unless they know the language of JavaScript or whatever it is these days that they're using, right? Python I just aged myself a little bit. Um that it's like great, I can have all the intention of the world of doing these things, but without like learning to speak the appropriate language of being able to do that. Well, again, that's that's the language of abiding. If we're gonna stay deeply connected to Jesus, it's it's prayer that helps us to do that first and foremost.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

No, that's so true. So good. Okay. One other thing I wrote down. I mean, this message was just like littered with like little like things where I'm like, oh my gosh, like that's so good. I want to remember that. Um and you paired the the last two letters of the acronym, the A and Y, uh, asking and yielding. Yeah. I thought it was so interesting because so often I feel like sometimes prayer can feel like a lot of asking. Yeah. But then pivoting on that, what if it's actually just so much more about the rhythm of alignment? Yeah. Making ourselves aware to God's will. He wants to hear from us, he wants to know the desires of our heart. He clearly says that throughout scripture. And yet submitting those desires to his will, I think, is kind of the hang up sometimes. Um, why was it important to you to like really like land the plane there?

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Yeah, for sure. Well, because I think if anyone is familiar with prayer, it's probably prayers of petition. Yeah. We're gonna talk about again later in this series, and yet less familiar with asks as part of a rhythm. And yet ultimately for Jesus, he then shifts into this yielding of prayer of saying, Yeah, I'm gonna make a specific ask. I'm gonna proactively seek after you, knowing that this thing is coming. And yet it's way more about an alignment of his heart with the heart of God the Father and truly modeling for us what does it mean for us to ultimately say, What I want more than anything is for my heart to be aligned with yours. I trust you more than I trust my own vision of what's happening around us. And so um, I think it it is important for us not only to turn in those kinds of prayers in the way that we prayer, but that becomes a regular part of our rhythm of prayer. And I and I I really do believe that the the R, the A, and the Y, the response, um, the ask and the yield really start to come about more naturally for us the more we prioritize prayer. And so it's like those are becoming the overflow of just time with God the Father.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

I love that. I'm so glad that you chose to start us off kind of on this foundation of what rhythms look like in prayer, and then obviously using Jesus as the model because that's what it's all about. He should always be there. Yeah, yeah. You know, so appreciate it. Thank you so much for taking the time to unpack that a little bit with us. Hey guys, if you want to listen to the whole sermon that this conversation is based on, you know what to do. It's on our YouTube channel, it's also available wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you guys next time.