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
The newspaper
Why do we buy a newspaper For it’s plain for us to see The pulp that it is made of Was better as a tree? George Knowles, Pit to Priest, Hucknall, May 2007.
A billboard lovely as a tree?
I think that I shall never see A billboard lovely as a tree. Perhaps unless the billboards fall, I’ll never see a tree at all. Ogden Nash (1902 – 71), Song of the Open Road, 1933.
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...
Climbing out of bed
Teach me thy love to know; That this new light, which now I see, May both the work and workman show: Then by a sunbeam I will climb to thee. George Herbert (1593-1633), Mattens.
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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Pull up the ladder Jack!
Deal not with me God as I have dealt with Man In the prosperity which thou hast given me Helpless in his need a careless course I ran And now O Lord that thou hast driven me To my last gasp, I pray for all I am not worth Deal not with me as I have dealt on earth....
Moral Justice: a Vision of God’s Kingdom
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God Bothering
If you were content, Lord, You would not bother with us. But you are restless: Through anger, through excitement, and through love, You will all things to change and be made new. So we praise you That your restlessness has been born in us: As the pain of the world The...
Glory: Now and Then, Here and There
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...
Our love hath no decay
The sun itself, which makes times, as they pass Is elder by a year now than then it was, When thou and I first one another saw; All other things to their destruction draw, Only our love hath no decay; This, no tomorrow hath, nor yesterday. Running, it never runs from...
Asleep in my Hand
Here in a quiet and dusty room they lie, Faded as crumbled stone or shifting sand, Forlorn as ashes, shrivelled, scentless, dry – Meadows and gardens running through my hand. Dead that shall quicken at the call of Spring, Sleepers to stir beneath June's magic kiss,...
Not death but glory
This isn’t death, it’s glory! It isn’t dark, it’s light. It isn’t stumbling, groping, Or even faith, it’s sight! This isn’t grief, it’s having My last tear wiped away. It’s sunrise, it’s the morning Of my eternal day! This isn’t even praying, It’s speaking face to...