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
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Our Father: Hallowed on Earth as in Heaven
I fit my stature to your need
I come in the little things, Saith the Lord: Not borne on morning wings Of majesty, but I have set my feet Amidst the delicate and blade of wheat That springs triumphant in the furrowed sod. There do I dwell, in weakness and in power: Not broken or divided, saith our...
The darkling thrush
At once a voice outburst among The bleak twigs overhead In a full-hearted evensong Of joy unlimited; An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small, An blast-beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom. So little cause for carollings Of such...
Thy soul and God stand sure
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure; What entered into thee, That was, is, and shall be: Time’s wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure Robert Browning (1812-89).
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
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Jesus Christ: Crucified God in Person
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Born to make us wild
A child is born, they cry, a child And he is Noble and not Mild (It is this child that makes them wild)… All noble mild children are brought home To the wicked king who has cast them down And ground their bones on the heavy stone. But the child that is Noble and...
Humankind: Sinful, Rebellious and Faithless
Our life’s star
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of...
‘I exist.’ Why?
A man said to the universe: ‘Sir, I exist.’ ‘However,’ replied the universe. ‘The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation.' Stephen Crane (1871-1900), War is Kind and Other Lines, 1899.
The end of our exploring
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...
Story of a hotel room
Thinking we were safe – insanity! We went in to make love…. … someone should have warned us That without permanent intentions You have absolutely no protection - If the act is clean, authentic, sumptuous, The concurring deep love of the heart Follows the naked...
The Grace of God: Justifying and Converting
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Christ died for God and me
Christ died for God and me Upon the crucifixion tree For God a spoken Word For me a Sword For God a hymn of praise For me eternal days For God an explanation For me salvation. Stevie Smith (1902-71), 1978.
Christ-likeness: Progressive Christian Living
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Put out to sea
When your ship Long moored in the harbour, Gives you the illusion Of being a house; When your ship Begins to put down roots In the stagnant water by the quay: Put out to sea! Save your boat’s journeying soul, And your own pilgrim soul, Cost what it may. Dom...
Holy Spirit: in Christian Experience
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My name is ‘I am’ not ‘I was’
I was regretting the past However dark it be; And fearing the future. Suddenly my lord was speaking; ‘My name is I am.’ He paused. I waited. He continued’ ‘When you live in the past, with its mistakes and regrets, it is hard. I am not there. My name is not ‘I was’....
Believers: Assured, Called and Prayerful
Search my sense and know my heart
Search me O God, my actions try, And let my life appear As seen by thine all-searching eye; To mine my ways make clear. Search all my sense and know my heart, Who only canst make known, And let the deep, the hidden part, To me be fully shown. Throw light into the...
I have only today
An hour which passes by; My life is a moment Which I have no power to stay. You know, O God, That to love you here on earth – I have only today. Therese of Lisieux (1873-97).
New every morning
New every morning is the love Our wakening and uprising prove; Through sleep and darkness safely brought, Restored to life and power and thought. John Keble (1792-1866) 1822.
Success
I’m Whatever is foreseen in joy Must be lived out from day to day. Vision held open in the dark By our ten thousand days of work. Harvest will fill the barn; for that The hand must ache, the face must sweat. And yet no leaf or grain is filled By work of ours; the...
The Church: Provisional but Necessary
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A frightful reformation lies ahead
Certainly things will be reformed; it will be a frightful reformation compared with which the Lutheran reformation will be almost a joke, a frightful reformation that will have as its battle-cry; ‘Whether will faith be found upon earth?’ and it will be...
The Mission of God
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Harvest: theirs and ours
We dare not ask you bless our harvest feast Till it is spread for poorest and for least. We dare not bring our harvest gifts to you Unless our hungry brothers share them too. Not only at this time, Lord; every day Those whom you love are dying...
Moral Justice: a Vision of God’s Kingdom
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Respecting women of yesterday today
She was poor but she was honest Victim of a rich man’s game. First, he loved her, then he left her, And she lost her maiden name… It’s the same the whole world over, It’s the poor wot gets the blame, It’s the rich wot gets the gravy, Ain’t it all a bleedin’...
Glory: Now and Then, Here and There
Quicken my dull-drooping spirit: grant it a crown
How do I spin my time away In caring how to get Ungodly wealth, and fret My self to sweat, As if thou, Lord, hadst meant this clay No after life, no reckoning day…. Quicken my dull-drooping spirit That it may praise thy name, Cleanse it from sin and blame, Take from...
Hope for us in time’s rust
Man at the best a creature frail and vain, In knowledge ignorant, in strength but weak, Subject to sorrows, losses, sickness, pain, Each storm his state, his mind, his body break, From some of these he never finds cessation, But day or night, within, without,...
The mind, a heaven or hell
A mind is not to be changed by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. John Milton (1608-74), Paradise Lost.
