The great Anglican Jeremy Taylor said, “I had rather your prayers should be often than long.” What good advice for families who realize that if our prayers together are to be very long, they probably won’t happen very often (or be very joyful when they do). We’re always thankful for the shortest form of Family Prayer found at the back of the 1928 Prayer Book (you can find a printable below).

Morning and evening prayer have been priorities (more like obligations, really) for Christians since the early days of the church. And while the full daily office (i.e. Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer) may be too long for our children to start out with, that shortest form of family prayer gives us a foundation. From there, we can be building up — canticle by canticle, element by element — to lead our children toward the full daily office.

Below are some of our resources to help build the habit of Family Prayer. We can be encouraged by the words of Julian of Norwich, “Full glad and merry is Our Lord of our prayer.”

Book of Common Prayer

• Family Prayer in the BCP, Part 1
• Family Prayer in the BCP, Part 2
• Family Prayer Printable

Family Prayer Booklets

• Family Prayer Booklet for Lent
• Family Prayer Booklet for Holy Week and Eastertide

More Family Prayer

• Reverence and Reticence: Charlotte Mason on Teaching Scripture to our Children
• Family Prayer and Julian of Norwich
• Prayer Book Liturgical Living
• There’s a Prayer for That – Kelli Ann Wilson of Around the Year
• A Baptist and the BCP – Jordan Riggle
• Prayer Habits for Parents – Erica Jarrett of Liturgy of Life
• Daily Prayer, “By the Book – Fr. Isaac Rehburg
• Family Prayer: An Uncommon Habit – Andrew Brashier of Through a Mirror Darkly
• Evening Prayer with a Xylophone – Amanda McGill

Collects:

• Advent Collects
• Collects Beyond Christmas
• Lenten Collects
• Eastertide Collects
• Ordinary Time Collects