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
Second Pentecost
Suddenly after long silence he has become voluble. He addresses me from a myriad directions with fluency of water, the articulateness of green leaves: and in the genes, too, the components of my existence. The rock, so long speechless, is the library of his poetry. He...
The cloistered rose
And God is the weight that bends the bough of the young tree gently as spring snow. He is the lightness of the summer flower, of the bee’s touch, and his the power that tames the sea and poises like a feather or a loose leaf the world. He threads together the stars...
The poet must carve a path out of the world’s stone
The poet must carve a path out of the world’s stone that leads up to the word of God. And this without knowing whether his words have the fine engraved edges of words in a monument or the movement you see in the travelling stars or opening flowers. In a child’s...
Indifferent?
When Jesus came to Birmingham they simply passed him by They never hurt a hair of him, they only let him die; For men had grown more tender, and they would not give him pain, They only passed him down the street, and left him in the rain. Studdert Kennedy G.A....
The Bible: Bestowed Word of God
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Jesus Christ: Crucified God in Person
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Love nailed Jesus
O God, Nails would not have held your Son to the cross Had not love held him there. Make us truly thankful for his great love shown on the cross; And grant that it may fix and steady us In those situations and places Which we might happily desert. After...
Humankind: Sinful, Rebellious and Faithless
Search my heart
Search me, O God, my action 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...
Mindful of God’s love
And now, O Father, mindful of the love that bought us, once for all, on Calvary's Tree, and having with us him that pleads above, we here present, we spread forth to thee that only Offering perfect in thine eyes, the one, true, pure, immortal Sacrifice. Look, Father,...
A strange and bitter crop
Southern trees bear a strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black body swinging in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from poplar trees. Pastoral scene of the gallant South, The bulging eyes and twisted mouth, Scent of magnolia sweet...
I wonder
Men go abroad to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering. Augustine (354-430),...
The Grace of God: Justifying and Converting
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The uninvited guest comes
When we are weak, we are strong. When our eyes close on the world, then somewhere within us the bush burns. When we are poor and aware of the inadequacy of our table, it is to that uninvited the guest comes. R.S. Thomas, ...
Christ-likeness: Progressive Christian Living
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Liz Truss ‘I will deliver’ But…
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction Of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying That the kingdom always lies beyond us: No statement says all that can be said. No prayer fully expresses our...
Holy Spirit: in Christian Experience
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A flash of rare delight
Enjoyment is a flash of rare delight, While only Christ illuminates for me The fear and darkness of this Earth’s strange night. Audrey Milner (1924-2017), Southwell.
Believers: Assured, Called and Prayerful
I took the road less travelled
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveller, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it...
Not far to go by the way of love
It is not far to go For you are near, It is not far to go for you are here, And not by travelling, Lord, We come to you, but by the way of love, and we love you. Amy Carmichael (1867 – 1951), Edges of His Way, 1955.
Am I talking to myself?
They tell me, Lord, that when I seem To be in speech with you, Since you make no replies, it’s all a dream One talker aping two. And so it is, but not as they Falsely believe. For I Seek in myself the thing I meant to say, And lo! The wells are dry. Then, seeing...
No Turning Back
I have decided to follow Jesus. Though I wander, I still will follow ; The world behind me, The Cross before me. Though none go with me, Still will I follow. Will you decide now To follow Jesus? No turning back; No turning back. Sundar Singh (Sadhu),...
The Church: Provisional but Necessary
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The English Reformation: more political than dogmatic
If one has to choose between the sole authority of the Bible and the sole authority of the Church, in Heaven’s name let us have the Church, which is alive, and, because plainly subject to error, is also capable of truth. And above all, let us be profoundly...
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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Injustice
Southern trees bear a strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black body swinging in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from poplar trees. Pastoral scene of the gallant South, The bulging eyes and twisted mouth, Scent of magnolia sweet...
Glory: Now and Then, Here and There
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.
Timed Out
Fly envious Time, till thou run out thy race… For when as each thing bad thou hast entombed, And last of all thy greedy self consumed, Then long eternity shall greet our bliss With an individual kiss, And joy shall overtake us as a flood; When everything that is...
