Poems and readings to reflect on and shape your faith
How to use Faith Shapers:
- Click on ROOMS to pick a theme
- Search for an author/poet by name
- Explore more by using the tags
- Feel free to share Faith Shapers
USE FAITH SHAPERS FOR:
- Prayer or in time of personal need
- Resource for a group meeting
- Illustrations for a devotional address
- Material for a church study course
Latest Posts
Faith-shaping Poets
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Our Father: Hallowed on Earth as in Heaven
Beginning is the End!
What we call the beginning is often the end And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from…. … A people without history Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails On a winter’s...
On the sixth day we came
They do not live in the world, Are not in time and space. From birth to death hurled No word do they have, not one To plant a foot upon, were never in any place. For with names the world was called Out of the empty air, With names was built and walled, Line and circle...
You are my Father
Thou art the peace of all things calm Thou art the place to hide from harm Thou art the light that shines in dark Thou art the heart’s eternal spark Thou art the door that’s open wide Thou art the guest who waits inside Thou art the stranger at the door Thou art the...
Made for Joy and Woe
Man was made for Joy & Woe And when this we rightly know Thro the World we safely go Joy & Woe are woven fine A Clothing for the soul divine Under every grief & pine Runs a joy with silken twine William Blake (1757-1827), Auguries of Innocence...
The Bible: Bestowed Word of God
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Bible before reason and church
What scripture doth plainly deliver, to that the first place of credit and obedience is due; the next whereunto is whatsoever any man can necessarily conclude by force of reason: after these the voice of the church succeedeth. Richard Hooker (c.1554 – 1600), Laws of...
Jesus Christ: Crucified God in Person
Coming Soon
It is this great absence that is like a presence, that compels me to address it without hope of a reply. It is a room I enter from which someone has just gone, the vestibule for the arrival of one who has not yet come. I modernise the anachronism of my language, but...
Quiet Revival?
I walked abroad in Easter Park, I heard the wild dog’s distant bark, I knew my Lord was risen again,- Wild dog, wild dog, you bark in vain. Stevie Smith (1902-71), Conviction (11),1978.
He shall win all again
What hath man done that man shall not undo, Since God to him is grown so near akin? Did his foe slay him? He shall slay his foe. Hath he lost all? He all again shall win. Is sin his master? He shall master sin…. He is a path if any be misled; He is a robe, if any...
Humankind: Sinful, Rebellious and Faithless
Life’s illusions
I’ve looked at life from both sides now, From win and lose and still somehow It’s life’s illusions I recall; I really don’t know life at all. Joni Mitchell (1945 - ), 1967.
Not only me
No man is an island, entire of itself; Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less; As well as if a promontory were, As well as if a manor of thy friends, or of thine own, were; Any man’s death...
Bondage more than liberty?
But what more oft in nations grown corrupt, And by their vices brought to servitude, Than to love bondage more than liberty, Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty, And to despise, or envy, or suspect, Whom God hath of his special favour raised As their deliverer;...
You Turn Away
I am the great sun, but you do not see me, I am your husband, but you turn away. I am the captive, but you do not free me, I am the captain you will not obey. I am the truth, but you will not believe me, I am the city where you will not stay, I am your wife, your...
The Grace of God: Justifying and Converting
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Blind unbelief is sure to err
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust him for his grace; Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour; The bud may have a bitter taste,...
Christ-likeness: Progressive Christian Living
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Can you follow? Will you know me?
And yet… Have I been so long time with thee And yet hast thou not known me? Blessed Master, I have known thee On the roads of Galilee. Have I been so long time with thee On the roads of Galilee: Yet, my child, hast thou not know me When I walked upon the sea? Blessed...
Holy Spirit: in Christian Experience
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Experience is worthless?
Experience is a futile teacher, Experience is a prosy preacher, Experience is a fruit tree fruitless, Experience is a shoe-tree, bootless, For sterile wearience and drearience Depend, my boy, upon experience. Experience! Wise men do not need it! Experience! Idiots do...
Believers: Assured, Called and Prayerful
What is next Lord?
The assured Christian is more motion than notion, more work than word, more life than lip, more hand than tongue. When he hath done one work, he is a-calling out for another. What is next, Lord, says the assured soul, what is the next? Thomas Brooks ( -1680),...
Assurance: as wings to the bird
Faith will make us walk, but assurance will make us run – we shall never think we can do enough for God. Assurance will be as wings to the bird, as weights to the clock, to set all the wheels of obedience running. Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity...
Let me guard the holy fire
O thou, who camest from above The pure celestial fire to impart, Kindle a flame of sacred love On the mean altar of my heart. There let it for thy glory burn With inextinguishable blaze, And trembling to its source return In humble prayer and fervent praise. ...
Glimpses of Truth
Open my eyes that I may see Glimpses of Truth Thou hast for me; Place in my hand the wonderful key That shall unlock and set me free. Silently now I wait for Thee, Ready my God, Thy will to see, Open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit divine. Clara H. Scott...
The Church: Provisional but Necessary
Vicar of large things in a small parish
I was vicar of large things in a small parish. Small-minded I will not say; there were depths in some of them I shrank back from, wells that the word ‘God’ fell into and died away, and for all I know is still falling. Who goes for water to such must prepare for a long...
Finding God
I went to church to find you But found in there instead The people looking inward To find you in their head. George Knowles, Pit to Priest, Hucknall, 2007.
In the sacred store the music died
I went down to the sacred store Where I'd heard the music years before But the man there said the music wouldn't play And in the streets the children screamed The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed But not a word was spoken The church bells all were broken And the...
Hymns of pure consent
At a Solemn Music Blest pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven’s joy, Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse, Wed your divine sounds; and mixed power employ Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce, And to our high-raised phantasy present That undisturbed...
The Mission of God
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Seed Planting
This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, Knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities. We...
Moral Justice: a Vision of God’s Kingdom
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Names of those who love the Lord: ‘Is mine one?’
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, And saw, within the moonlight in his room, Making it rich and like a lily in bloom, An angel writing in a book of gold: Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, And to the presence in...
Glory: Now and Then, Here and There
I sought to stand for God
I sought to stand for God Tall, straight and proud, An oak of righteousness Head in a cloud. The spirit winds that blew Stripped all my leaf, Broke heavy branches off, Trunk split in grief. The gentle morning sun Shone down on me, My helplessness complete,...
Ungranted God, one with him in me
Faith Unfaithful Mute, with signs I speak: Blind, by groping seek: Heed; yet nothing hear: Feel; find no one near. Deaf, eclipsed, and dumb, Through this gloom I come On the time-path trod Toward ungranted God. Carnal, I can claim Only his known name Dying, can...
You will need it
Have you built your ship of death? O, have you? O, build your ship of death, for you will need it. D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930), 1933.
Uninhabited Cross
Not the empty tomb but the uninhabited cross. Look long enough and you will see the arms put on leaves. Not a crown of thorns but a crown of flowers haloing it, with a bird singing as though perched on paradise’s threshold. R.S. Thomas (1913-2000),...