The Anglican Family Prayer Book

This has been a wonderful resource for our family. While it is absolutely appropriate for a family from any denomination, those from the Anglican tradition will especially enjoy it. It makes the daily office user friendly for families with children who might struggle flipping pages through the BCP with all of its options and choices. The book also contains prayers for other holidays, celebrations, and occasions throughout the year. We especially found it helpful with our Advent celebration with prayers and readings for our Advent Wreath lighting each evening. I highly recommend it! Godparents, this would be the perfect gift for your godchild's family.

This is a wonderful resource for families with children, helping parents to find what they need in order to pray with their children. There are some short explanations (what does 'Amen' mean?) a helpful index of first lines (for those prayers you can't remember where to find) and the type is nice and big! This book is a helpful guide for Episcopalians and for anyone who wants beautiful prayers at their fingertips. The Book of Common Prayer has been called the most beautiful book of prayer in the English language -this little treasure helps it to be a bit more accessible for use at home.

Anne Kitch is probably better known to readers as the author of children's books (`Bless this Day', `Bless this Way', and `One Little Church Mouse') - this is not a children's book per se, but it does keep in mind both Kitch's love for writing for children, and her special ministry of education that involves children. Children are integral to the family (that goes without saying, perhaps), and prayer should also be integral to the family. This book provides a framework, suggestions, prayer texts and inspiration for incorporating prayer into the family life on a daily basis, around gathering times such as meals, as well as other parts of life. In many ways, no Anglican can escape the liturgical patterns of the Book of Common Prayer or the liturgical daily cycles of ancient monastic systems (nor, indeed, do they generally want to!). This book begins with a wonderful introduction to what common prayer is - it is not common as in `uninteresting' or `ordinary', but common as in the root of the word `communal' - these are things done in common, in community, and the family provides a perfect context and beginning for true community. There are many common prayers held in common across the broader lines of Christianity - the Lord's Prayer, the Song of Mary (Magnificat), St. Francis' prayer, etc., and these are laid out in the first section with introductions accessible to all.The second section looks at daily prayer - morning, evening, graces, blessings, bedtime prayers, as well as prayers for days of the week. How one goes about prayer, in the family group and when one is alone, is important, and Kitch discusses that at the beginning of this section.The third section has prayer suggestions and texts for people and occasions. Special occasions in the life of the family - anniversaries and birthdays, new homes, baptisms, grieving - as well as prayers for important members of the extended family - distant relatives, friends, visitors, even pets - are included here. There are prayers for healing and reconciliation, and prayers for thanksgiving and celebration. There is more than one way to talk to God, Kitch reminds us, and one can use either the acronym ACTIP (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Intercession and Petition) or ACTS (replacing the final two with the word Supplication) as a reminder for the various ways we talk to God in prayer. The final two sections bring the world of the prayers of the Anglican church into relationship with the prayers of the family with an overview and text samples of prayers from the Eucharistic liturgy (with a brief discussion on how to teach children to worship) and prayers for the liturgical year (special prayers for major holidays and seasons). This is a wonderful resource, a small book with big print (all the better for small hands to grasp and readers of all ages to find inviting in word and physical form). I highly recommend it to Anglicans of any age, and even to those beyond the Anglican tradition wh