9 Simple + Creative Mealtime Prayers for Families

Dinner and mealtime prayers are great opportunities to get your family into the prayer habit, to reflect on all the blessings in your life, to encourage thankfulness, and to connect with God. These simple mealtime prayers are great for families with kids of all ages.

Below you’ll find some mealtime prayers that are short and simple and can be memorized (or printed on a cue card or a page to be hung on the wall) as well as some prayer ideas that aren’t so formulaic.

Different prayer patterns will work for different families. Maybe you want something short and sweet and rhyming for the small kids. Maybe you want something more reflective that gets you thinking about your day and where you’ve seen God.

If you don’t already have a prayer practice that you like for before meals, try out some different kinds and see what feels most comfortable. The experimentation phase can be quite fun, as you try different types of prayer and engage different parts of your brain and your heart.

Why It’s Important to Say Grace Before Meals

Saying grace before meals is a practice in thankfulness and a good reminder to check in with God every once in a while throughout your day.

We have an excellent model of prayer and thanksgiving in the Bible in Jesus. Jesus consistently withdrew from the busyness of life to pray, and he regularly gave thanks: for food, for answered prayer, for the revelation of his Father’s will.

1 John 2:6 tells us that if we claim to live in Christ, then we must live as Jesus did.

One way that we can do this is to make prayer – and mealtime prayer specifically – a regular practice.

When Jesus fed the 5,000 (John 6:5-11), with only 5 small loaves and 2 fish, the first thing that he did was to take the loaves of bread and give thanks for them.

During the last supper with his disciples, before Jesus was taken away to be crucified, he also broke bread and gave thanks (Mark 14:17-26).

Of course, we can be thankful for all the blessings (and even the challenges) in our lives all the time. But mealtime offers a natural pause in the day when we can give thanks for food, family, friends, and all the other blessings in our lives.

What do you say when you say grace at dinner?

Every family will be a little bit different when it come to mealtime prayers. Maybe you like short, formulaic rhyming prayers that your kids can recite. Maybe you like to reflect on the highs and the lows of the day and share where you saw God. When you say grace at dinner, the important thing is to find a prayer that feels right for your family. We like to just list some things that we are thankful for that day, including the food before us and anything special that happened that day.

Tips for Getting Your Family in the Mealtime Prayer Habit

Creating a new habit can be tough, especially at the beginning. If you are not already in the habit of praying before meals, here are some ideas to help you remember to pray.

Set a timer on your phone.
Print a few of your favourite mealtime prayers and hang them in your kitchen or dining room.
Write out a few of your favourite mealtime prayers on index cards and keep them in a jar or a box on (or near) the dinner table.
Ask your family to help you remember to say grade before meals.
Find a prayer practice that you like. Maybe your family likes the short, formulaic rhyming prayers. Maybe you want something less scripted that encourages more reflection. If you find a prayer practice that you enjoy, you’re more likely to remember to do it.

Want a set of mealtime prayer cards to use at home or tuck in your kid’s lunchbox? Grab your set of Mealtime Prayer Cards here.

As mealtime prayer becomes more of a habit, it will become a natural part of the fabric of your daily life (and it won’t be so tough to remember to do it).

I think an important thing to remember is that you don’t necessarily have to pray before the meal every time. Our family does mealtime prayers before dinner, and we’ve been doing it for a few years now, but even now we quite commonly forget until we’ve started eating.

And really, that’s no big deal. After a few bites, one of us inevitably chimes in: “Oh! We forgot something.”

And then someone else will start with, “Thank you God…”

The point of mealtime prayer is to pause and reflect and gives thanks for the blessings in your life. Doing this before you start eating is an easy way to turn it into a habit. But don’t beat yourself up if you find yourself praying half-way through your meal.

Simple Mealtime Prayers for Families

These mealtime prayers are great for families of all ages. When your kids are quite small, you might want to start with a short, simple, and maybe even a rhyming prayer. As they get older, you might want to add in some more reflective prayer practices to get them engaged in counting their blessings and watching for God’s presence in their lives.

Mealtime Prayer #1 - For Food and Friends

Lord we thank you,
for the food before us,
the friends beside us,
the love between us,
and your presence among us.
Amen.

Mealtime Prayer #2 - For the Blessing of Food

Father, we praise You for the nourishment that You provide.
Thank You for meeting our physical needs of hunger and thirst.
Forgive us for taking that simple joy for granted, and bless this food to fuel our bodies forward into Your will for our lives.
We pray that we will be energized and be able to work for the glory of Your Kingdom.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Mealtime Prayer #3 - Remembering those Less Fortunate

For food in a world where many walk in hunger; 
For faith in a world where many walk in fear; 
For friends in a world where many walk alone; 
We give you thanks, O Lord.
Amen.

The Simplest Mealtime Prayer for Families

This mealtime prayer is a short and simple prayer of gratitude for all the blessings in your life. It’s perfect if you don’t have the time, desire, or mental space to memorize something, or if you simply want to give thanks in your own words for your own specific day.

Mealtime Prayer #4 – Thank you, God

We love this super simple prayer in our house. This mealtime prayer doesn’t need to be memorized. It doesn’t rhyme. It’s not cute. But it is simple and effective.

By far the easiest way to say grace before a meal and express gratitude each day for all the blessing in your life is this: Simple list the things that you are thankful for.

We start this prayer by saying, “Thank you God…” and then list 3 or 4 or 7 things that we’re thankful for. We usually start with food and family, and then we add a few specific things from our day.

Yesterday we were thankful for warm weather and swimming pools.

Sometimes we are thankful for Lego, or for Pokemon walks (Remember the Pokemon Go game? We do that a lot in our house as an excuse to get the kids out walking.)

A different person can lead this prayer each time, and everyone around the table simply repeats what the leader says. It’s best to pause between small bits of the prayer too. Start with “Thank you God.” Everyone else: “Thank you God.” Leader: “For our supper.” Everyone else: “For our supper.” Leader: “And our family.” Everyone else: “And our family.” Leader: “And for Netflix and popcorn.” Everyone else: “And for Netflix and popcorn.” And so on. You get the idea.

What I love most about this mealtime prayer is that you don’t have to remember a single thing. Except what you’re thankful for. And you can have fun listing some outrageous and very specific things from your day. Like backyard slip’n’slides, or the fort that you built in your living room.

Last year, at 7-years-old, one kid’s prayer was consistently: “Thank you God for dying on the cross.” Can I express how much I love that prayer? No. No, I cannot.

Rhyming Mealtime Prayers for Families

Rhyming mealtime prayers are great for small kids. We use one of these rhyming mealtime prayers each month for Messy Church (our meal-based family service at church) because it’s easy for the kids to follow along, and smaller kids – especially when you get them together in groups, it seems – love the patterns and the simplicity of these prayers.

Rhyming Mealtime Prayer #1 - God is Great

God is great
and God is good.
Let us thank him for our food.
By God's hand we all are fed.
Give us Lord our daily bread.
Amen.

Rhyming Mealtime Prayer #2 - For Food and Prayer

Thank you, God
for food and prayer.
Teach us how to love and share. 
Amen.

Rhyming Mealtime Prayer #3 - For Rest and Home

Thank you God, for this food,
for rest and home,
and all things good.
For wind and rain and sun above, 
but most of all
for those we love.
Amen.

Rhyming Mealtime Prayer #4 - For the World so Sweet

Thank you for the world so sweet.
Thank you for the food we eat.
Thank you for the birds that sing.
Thank you, God, for everything.
Amen.

reflective mealtime prayer idea for families

Rose, Thorn, Bud, Root

If you want a mealtime prayer for your family that is more reflective and less formulaic, the rose, thorn, bud, root prayer is perfect.

Our family loves this prayer practice. When our kids were small, we started out doing this with just our “bests” and “worsts”: What was the best part of your day? What was the worst part of your day? Our kids could do the simple version by the time they were 5 years old. (And probably even earlier, but we started when they were five.)

The rose, bud, thorn, root prayer encourages reflection on your day and looking for where you see God at work in the world and in your life. This is a great prayer to encourage kids to open up about their days, to share their joys and their sorrows, and to get them listening and watching for God.

How to do the Rose, Thorn, Bud, Root Prayer:

Choose one family member to start. That person shares their rose, thorn, bud, and root. Everyone else listens and then shares in turn.

Rose: What was the best part of your day?

Thorn: What was the worst part of your day?

Bud: What are you looking forward to tomorrow?

Root: Where did you see God today?

Once everyone has shared about their day, you can close with a simple prayer of thanksgiving for all the blessings and a request for God to be with us especially in our sorrows and disappointments.

This is also a great mealtime prayer to do with friends – especially if those friends are not used to saying grace before meals. Reflecting on your day and sharing those places where you see God at work is a great way to encourage thankfulness in your wider circles and share where God is at work in your own life.