Celtic Treasure: Daily Scriptures and Prayer

“Celtic Treasure: Daily Scriptures and Prayer” by J. Philip Newell is a great book for family devotions.  Emily and I got it a year ago and often use it when we have prayer times together.  It’s really easy to follow and has beautiful prayers and pictures painted by the author’s children in it.

From the review on Amazon,

Philip Newell set out to find a cringe-free guide to family devotions. Unable to find anything not written for an ideal Christian family with totally compliant offspring, he decided to create his own devotions. The book that resulted will enable families to draw regularly from the great riches of Scripture. It will also work easily for individual prayer or worship in small groups.”

A few things things I think are great about the book:
1) The opening and closing prayer with the lighting of the candles
is one of the things that remains the same throughout the whole book and helps create continuity within the prayer time.
2) There is a time of silence built into each day’s prayers
3) The prayers tend to be focused on sharing and looking out for those in need.
4) Each prayer service can go as short as ten minutes and can go much longer.
5) The drawings done by Newell’s children are beautiful and help encourage creativity as a part of spiritual devotion.

The book is great for couples and especially people with children who are looking to incorporate simple practices into their family life.

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