Prayer 101: Why We Pray (November 2, 2025 Adult Sunday School)

Send us Fan MailPresenter: Dylan LewellynEver felt put on the spot to pray and didn’t know where to start? We open the door wide: anyone can pray, anywhere, with words or without them. Together we map the landscape of gratitude and intercession, then dig into a deeper truth inspired by Eugene Peterson’s Answering God—prayer isn’t about acquiring favors, it’s about being formed. Instead of chasing techniques, we learn to bring our whole selves before God, letting the Psalms and even familiar hymns coach our honesty when language fails.We wrestle with the tough stuff too. Does prayer change the world, or just us? What do we say when someone prays and still suffers? By challenging transactional habits and prosperity-gospel reflexes, we return to a relational core: nothing can separate us from the love of God. We don’t pray to get closer to a distant deity; we pray to feel the nearness that already holds us. That shift reframes healing stories, scientific explanations, and the slow work of discernment—not as competing narratives, but as places where grace can meet us.You’ll hear practical models that actually help. The Lord’s Prayer becomes a simple scaffold for adoration, alignment, daily bread, forgiveness, and freedom. The ACTS pattern keeps our prayers balanced without turning them into scripts. We practice divine brevity so our words land, and we share child-friendly phrases that distill prayer into feelings a two-year-old can grasp: thank you when I’m happy, be with me when I’m sad, help me listen when I’m silly, make me gentle when I’m mad. We close with community intercessions, trusting that shared prayer stitches courage and compassion into a people who can carry hope.If this conversation encouraged you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a gentle on-ramp to prayer, and leave a review with your favorite one-line prayer—we’d love to read it on a future episode.Follow us on Instagram @guilfordparkpresbyterianchurchFollow us on Facebook @guilfordparkpcFollow us on TikTok @guilfordparkpreschurchWebsite:  www.guilfordpark.org