Living a Life of Prayer: AJ Sherrill at Crossway’s Spiritual Formation Weekend - Deeper Experiences with God - Season 2 Episode 24
What if your whole day, from walking the dog to taking a nap, could become a life of prayer? This episode takes us back to Crossway Church’s Spiritual Formation Weekend earlier in October 2026, where Dave sat down live with retreat speaker and previous podcast guest AJ Sherrill, pastor of St. Peter’s Anglican Church in Mount Pleasant, SC, and author of Being with God. Building on AJ’s teaching on indwelling, intrusion, and integration, they explore how to move beyond scheduled times of prayer toward a life of ongoing awareness of God, through the body and the ordinary.
Takeaways:
- Sanctifying the ordinary. AJ shares how he turned a daily chore into sacred time: reciting the Apostles’ Creed while walking his Yorkie, then praying the daily office while his coffee steeps. He offers this as description, not prescription, and invites us to find our own ways to treat everyday moments, work, and even a barista’s craft as places where God meets us.
- Action: Choose one ordinary routine this week (making coffee, a commute, a chore) and invite God into it with a simple prayer, phrase, or act of reverence.
- Praying with the body: walking and rest. Anxiety often lives in the body, which can make sitting still feel torturous. AJ describes how walking gives the “CEO” of the brain something to do and opens us to the Spirit, and how guarding sleep (even a 20-minute nap) protects the energy we bring to God and to others.
- Action: Take a walk this week with no agenda. Start with the Lord’s Prayer or a simple phrase, and notice what surfaces, even if you only get through two lines.
- Power through weakness. Building on Dallas Willard, AJ describes a kingdom power that flows through weakness and consent (willingness, not willfulness) rather than domination. It’s why a small house church outlasted Rome, and it’s experienced by others as joy and compassion. Its aim isn’t to be heroic but helpful: a life of doing little things with great love, remembered not for the books or stages, but for faithful presence.
- Action: Ask God: “Where are you inviting me to be helpful rather than heroic?” Then choose one small, hidden act of love to offer someone this week.
- Upstream and downstream practices. Some practices flow naturally with our personalities (downstream). Others require us to paddle against our ego (upstream). AJ reminds us that grace isn’t opposed to effort, only to earning, and invites us to add something that stretches us.
- Action: Name one spiritual practice you naturally love and one you tend to avoid. Bring both to God and consider taking one small step into the avoided practice this week.
Quote of the Show:
- “Grace isn’t opposed to effort; it’s opposed to earning.” - AJ Sherrill
Links:
- Website: https://www.ajsherrill.org/
- Books: https://www.ajsherrill.org/#buynow
- Bio: https://saintpeters.me/bioaj
Creators and Guests
