Common Prayer for Children and Families

I began a new position a week ago, and as is wont to happen when you walk into a new space, you find that you have closets, classrooms, and other areas to sift through and organize. I had just finished pulling out a box filled with catalogs and magazines from 1989, discarding crayons and pencils with crusty erasers from a similar time period while wiping dust off my face when eyes landed on a little cranberry colored book. I reached out, plucked it up, and instantly lost the next 20 minutes because I became engrossed in the contents between the covers. Common Prayer for Children and Families by Jenifer Gamber and Timothy Seamans was published in 2019 and I whispered to the book, “Why have you not been in my hands before today, my friend?”

Common Prayer for Children and Families is a little gem, thoughtfully organized into six sections. The first section has mealtime prayers and The Lord’s Prayer. The second section has what you would expect to find in a book of common prayer; daily prayers for morning, afternoon, and evening, all written to span the ages and stages you would find in a home with parents/caregivers and children of all ages. As you continue on, you’ll find prayers to span through the liturgical seasons, the traditional seasons of the calendar year, praying with the saints, and praying for the world. Everything is written to be accessible across ages and stages. Simple, but sweet line drawings accompany the prayers and plenty of white space is provided to keep the effect calming and mindful (but with space for families to make notes alongside the prayers). 

When I got home from my organizing expedition, I sent an email to the publisher because I was completely smitten with this beautiful resource. My brain was racing with all the ways I wanted to use this and I wanted to check in with them about the permissions. The second section has exactly what I will be using to build the spine for a children and family chapel time each Sunday, as long as we’re not streaming (we’re not) or making photocopies (nope). But, if I want to, I can contact their permissions department and make arrangements. However, I’m already working with a bookstore to get a bulk quantity of these books as our Advent gifts for families. Once I have these, I can use the mealtime prayers section as a multigenerational time over fellowship to create our own church-wide collection of mealtime prayers. Then we’ll be able to create table tents for coffee hour and for people to take home. I am also planning on using the prayers for the liturgical seasons as the spines for a Zoom based ‘monthly family blessing’ gathering. I can see using the sections on praying for the world and praying with the saints as we close our faith formation times, inviting parents/caregivers to join us, allowing us to model how to use this part of the resource. This is exactly the type of resource that we need; ready to go tools for children’s ministers to use alongside families, helping to equip parents/caregivers as the primary leaders of their children’s faith formation. I’m so glad I found this!