Christian Poetry and Spoken Word Media for Churches and Faith

Connections

24.12.2014 Filed in: Poetry |Christian |Video |Spoken Word Written by: W Grieve

The artist
dot by dot
paintbrush breathes life,
imagination captured
Story told
unfolding in viewers mind.

This place
This church,
dot by dot
creating over time
3D art mirroring life,
Story told
over time
in relationships,
Love connections.

Patina of years
Layers deepen
each dot, each brushstroke,
mirroring reflections,
glimpses of the image
of God.

We are God's
picture,
individual hues
Blending, composing.

So jump
into the paint, the painting
Enjoy being His creation,
sing His colours,
connected to create
connected to bless
Connected to portray
experiences of Gods love.

The church is a painting - Christian Poetry

Love Is

15.11.2014 Filed in: Poetry |Christian |Video |Spoken Word Written by: W Grieve

Love is
both heart and mind
passion
decision,
Love is holding hands
in sunshine
in hard times.

Love is quiet
A good morning smile
A look of praise
A caring, holding,
A crying together.

Love is powerful
Patient,
Quick to forgive
Slow to anger
Strong in respect
for each other.
Love is humour
Laughter in moments shared
Joy in a future combined
Love is honour
Placing priority in the other
Love is time
spent chatting,
revealing secrets
Open honesty
Just being there.

Love is … twenty second
hugs with my best friend,

Love God
Love you.

Starter Thoughts: How can love stand the test of time? How can we be really in love? Perspectives on love for marriage.
Poetry Topic Tags: #crying, #christian #decisions, #forgiveness, #futures, #heart, #honesty, #hugs, #humour, #love, #marriage, #patient, #poems, #poetry, #respect, #spokenword, #together, #videos, #wedding

Marriage and Love Poem Spoken Word for church serivce

In the Bubble

09.04.2014 Filed in: Poetry |Christian |Video |Spoken Word Written by: W Grieve

You have come
Committed to us
Love to us
Born with us

Why did you bother?
Just look around
and see the pain
Beyond our bubble of life
Maybe even in the bubble
- the hurt
The environment groaning
Crying out its slaughter.

But your heart
Responds, responds
deliberate unconditional love
The same power that sustains
Universe spinning galaxies
Birthed vulnerable
Laughed free,
Knew injustice firsthand,
Felt pain depths,
Cross hung
The father turned his face away
Time suspended
The unknown of three.

And then power!
A time to live
A time for amazing
A time for the biggest
Divine miracle.

Risen now
The last word
Is Forever alive
Love to us.

His world changing
love starts with us.

Tags: bubble, change, love, environment, power

Egyptian Canterbury

04.04.2014 Filed in: Poetry |Seeker | |Spoken Word Written by: W Grieve

Black cat god arches,
flicks her tail,
art hieroglyphics revere
felines across a thousand walls,
centuries years old now.
-----sand hourglass time trickle-----
My black cat stretches
Lazy in heated sun
A God of just one family
Scratching the door to
be let out, to be fed.

The mighty Nile
Seasonal Floods
Rich blessings for
------generations pass------
Dairy, cropping, forests, farms
Stretch patchwork across Canterbury Plains
Waimakariri scatters its braids
sprawling to the ocean.

Yellow Sand, clay walls
seared in scorching sun,
Neighbours crowded
water carried
dry the bones
----- existences come and go-----
Christchurch city wood and brick dwellings
stretched over flat plains,
meandering Avon
Artesian crystal clear water piped
toilets, drinking, cooking
Just turn the tap.

Crowned Pharaoh
supreme God of
Pyramid, Sand and Nile
Words that command life, death
------ time moves by----------
Commands wealth
Captains of industry
multinational trendrils
cut money from Canterbury.
In power
a party, a prime minister
and media bombardment of public relations.

WALT:
To communicate experiences, with descriptive language, so that others can feel they are there.

Success Criteria:

Showing understanding of Ancient Egyptians and us today.
Focus on strong adjectives
Use a wide range of contrasts in the poem
Use commas to set the rhythm of the poem
Short interesting thoughts, one per line
Unnecessary and small words cut out.

Inspired by Extreme Poetry resource (131+ pages of poetry tips and ideas). Click to view and gain access to great poetry forms, lessons and activities.

Same Different

04.04.2014 Filed in: Poetry |Seeker | |Spoken Word Written by: W Grieve

My beard stubble is grey
your chin is young smooth
but we all look the same
to an alien.
I'm taller
You're shorter
but we're both small
in front of basketball player towers,
and never ending space.

I like touch rugby,
thinking about God,
my gorgeous wife and children,
opening my eyes to new things
and a thousand other likes,
Your thousand passions
are as different as sand grains,
but we both have tastes.

I hate graffiti
the civil war in that country
Not being able to connect with others,
Your hates are
as different to mine
as snow flake patterns.

If everyone was the same
our colour would be grey
and if nobody understood differences
our colour would be black
Can we be rainbows?

WALT:
To communicate experiences, with descriptive language, so that others can feel they are there.

Success Criteria:

Others can feel they are there, remember times like this themselves
Use a wide range of contrasts in the poem
Use commas to set the rhythm of the poem
Short interesting thoughts, one per line
Unnecessary and small words cut out.

Inspired by Extreme Poetry resource (131+ pages of poetry tips and ideas). Click to view and gain access to great poetry forms, lessons and activities.

shadows_bush_dappled_sunshines_mirror_mirror_poem_poetry_pupils_school_kids

Alive in the Storm

04.04.2014 Filed in: Poetry |Seeker | |Spoken Word Written by: W Grieve

It starts
with a whisper
a rustle of leaves
breathed on by wind,
Scudding clouds arrive
gusts slam
branches protest,
bending pain to grey black clouds.
Tree fingers are broken
falling slain to sodden grass.
Rain knives slash
from overloaded buckets
driving deep into my clothes.
I stand
waiting for a bus,
Cold, excited
loving the whipped movements,
the power,
the storm.

WALT:
To communicate an experience, with descriptive language, so that others can feel they are there.

Success Criteria:

Others can feel they are there, remember times like this themselves.
Use commas to set the rhythm of the poem
Short interesting thoughts, one per line
Unnecessary and small words cut out.

Inspired by Extreme Poetry resource (131+ pages of poetry tips and ideas). Click to view and gain access to great poetry forms, lessons and activities.

Bush Shadows

04.04.2014 Filed in: Poetry |Seeker | |Spoken Word Written by: W Grieve

On inside rain-trapped days....

My eyes remember
Bush dark ferns, manuka trunks,
Sunlight strokes,
Shaping shadows,
My feet remember
dirt track, dust covered boots,
My face remembers
light breeze just stirring,
My body remembers
stationary silence- leaning to beauty,
My heart, my mind remembers
peaceful colours, tranquil contrasts.

Sunset dips,
Night bucket fills,
Painting black.

WALT:
To communicate an experience, with descriptive language, so that others can feel they are there.

Success Criteria:

Others can feel they are there, remember times like this themselves.
To capture a memory using the 'feeling' sense mainly.
Short simple thoughts, one per line
To use ellipsis (can be used to indicate a pause in the flow of a sentence), fullstops and capital letters.
Unnecessary and small words cut out.

Inspired by Extreme Poetry resource (131+ pages of poetry tips and ideas). Click to view and gain access to great poetry forms, lessons and activities.

Mirror, Mirror

04.04.2014 Filed in: Poetry |Seeker | |Spoken Word Written by: W Grieve

You think it's funny
to poke out your tongue
and show me your tooth paste smothered tongue,
You look closely
at pale skin
and pop your zit,
Some of you - usually
the ones with longer hair,
Spend forever
Colouring in your lips,
making black lines
on eyebrows
and brushing
perming, brushing.

I hear you practice
the lie
you will tell Mum,
trying to see if,
by looking at me,
you can keep a straight face,

As I reflect on humans
I realise
sometimes your face mirrors your heart
hesitant smile, creasing frown, lip pout,
other times your face lies,
covering the feelings.

But I always tell the truth,
showing you for what you are.

WALT:
To communicate an experience, with descriptive language, so that others can feel they are there.

Success Criteria:

Others can feel they are there, remember times like this themselves.
Capture an objects point-of-view
Short simple thoughts, one per line
Unnecessary and small words cut out.

Inspired by Extreme Poetry resource (131+ pages of poetry tips and ideas). Click to view and gain access to great poetry forms, lessons and activities.

Light

04.04.2014 Filed in: Poetry |Seeker | |Spoken Word Written by: W Grieve

Emitted and absorbed
light
obvious and mysterious,
These glimpses
create more questions.

Surface afterglows,
in evening air
Sunset,
now
gloomy place
colours removed.
City lights glow
sky masking
three thousand
hesitant pinpricks,
Cosmic energy
flung
clusters and scatters
Universe wide.

Particles float on
turbulent atmosphere,
Light is bent,
Stars twinkle.

This poem came from a search at first on light, then sunrises and finally stars.

WALT:
To write a poem that communicates creatively my thoughts and research.

Success Criteria:

The words we pick fit together
The ideas work together line by line
To use punctuation to enhance the meaning and help the reader.
I have added my own thoughts to put in my voice.
To credit the sources that I used.

Inspired by Extreme Poetry resource (131+ pages of poetry tips and ideas). Click to view and gain access to great poetry forms, lessons and activities.

Dot Praise

16.03.2014 Filed in: Poetry |Christian |Video |Spoken Word Written by: W Grieve

You are vast,
The power
Universe sustaining,
And yet dust
A dot in space
Holds your love.
Maybe not the only dot,
But we are your creation
Created for good
Sustained, released in Christ.

Created to praise
To shout out
"God is good!"
In all circumstances:
in grey emotions
in dark pain valleys
in breathtaking mountain tops
in darkening sunsets
before light spilling sunrises
within expanding spinning galaxies.

Starting Thoughts: Sunrises, galaxies, sunsets, mountains, valleys, dark, light, pain and peace - in all times God is good.
Poem Topic Tags: #worship, #creation, #good, #pain, #praise, #space, #sunsets, #universe
Posting Tags: #artist, #creativewriting, #edapp, #edchat, #edtech, #elearning, #GlobalEd, #god, #instawrite, #jesus, #lrnchat, #mlearning, #poems, #poetry, #poetrycommunity, #poetryinmotion, #poetryisnotdead, #poetsofinstagram, #schools, #spilledink, #spokenword, #teaching, #TT, #typewriter, #videos, #wordsmith, #writing, #writinglife

praise_worship_earth_vastness_space_pain_peace_god_is_good

Tags: desert, dry, revive, bloom, holyspirit

Future Threads

23.02.2014 Filed in: Poetry |Christian |Video |Spoken Word Written by: W Grieve

Unknown futures
stretch threads
Wandering questions
through my mind,
What next?

We want and hope
for so much,
Yet feel self shortchanged
Overlooked, tired.

And in it all
A search for love, meaning
Purpose, fun,
Not the random, empty.

Thousands of years of history
shout a story
to me today,
a story of twelve
a story of millions
a story of the One.

What would happen
If I give the unknown
to a known God?

Prompt
The future stretches out in front of you... where is it going, how connected are we to the possibilities for ourselves?
Poem Tags
#christian, #futures, #history, #hope, #hopes, #jesus, #meaning, #possibilities, #poetry, #poem, #questions, #seeker, #spokenword, #story, #threads, #tiredness

Questions in the future, poems spoken word

Tags: futures, questions, unknown, hope, trust

Such a Time

16.02.2014 Filed in: Poetry |Christian |Video |Spoken Word Written by: W Grieve

It is your time
this moment
The purposes of your heart
flying to a new horizon,
A sea sunset
before you,
Colour stretching opportunities
that look thin at first
in the light of day,
But stand brighter
as darkness falls,
And as you travel
to the distant thin line
Distance develops behind,
distance from previous relationships
distance from harmony conversations
Distance from the land left behind
distance from what has been safe
distance from love in the Christchurch city,

As you travel towards
the iridescent line
a new day dawns forward
in a dissolving horizon
Creating new destiny
new conversations
new shelter and freedoms
new love,
a luminous life
for you are
God's lights
fireflies to the horizon.

Starting Thoughts: Written for friends travelling overseas into mission. A word to encourage and celebrate their new journey taking part of us with them.
Poem Topic Tags: #change, #destiny, #divineappointments, #faith, #horizon, #journey, #mission, #opportunities, #purpose, #steps
Posting Tags: #artist, #christian, #creativewriting, #instawrite, #poems, #poetry, #poetsofinstagram, #poetryisnotdead, #poetrycommunity, #poetryinmotion, #spilledink, #spokenword, #typewriter, #videos, #wordsmith, #writing, #writinglife, #writerscommunity, #writerscorner, #writersofinstagram,

A journey of mission and opportunity poetry

So Often

16.02.2014 Filed in: Poetry |Christian |Video |Spoken Word Written by: W Grieve

So often
We see the past,
Nostalgic dreams,
Rose's thorns,
Tint memories' eyes
Colluding, enveloping thoughts,
Until timelines change
And living yesterday captures
Today.

Fake experiences
Strangle tomorrow's hope,
Patterned life abnormal normal,
Arteries clogged- hardened.

Changes?
Something new?
Challenged?

Starting Thoughts: Do our memories of the past enrich our present and future or slowly strangle them? How do we cope with the problems, sins and fears that keep dragging us back?
Poem Topic Tags: #change, #experiences, #future, #life, #memories, #nostalgia, #past, #seeker,
Posting Tags: #artist, #christian, #creativewriting, #instawrite, #poems, #poetry, #poetsofinstagram, #poetryisnotdead, #poetrycommunity, #poetryinmotion, #spilledink, #spokenword, #typewriter, #videos, #wordsmith, #writing, #writinglife, #writerscommunity, #writerscorner, #writersofinstagram,