“Poetry has so much to offer the church, but the main thing it teaches us is that human beings are both body and soul.”

Why should Christians read poetry? In this session, Professor Van Engen gives some basic reasons why Christians and especially ministry leaders might want to try out poetry and learn from this form of art.

Main Points

• Poetry names creation. It participates in a task God assigned humans at creation: to name and to know the world.
• Poetry tells the truth. But it understands the truth as experience, not just as proposition or logic or rules or principles or statements. To know is to undergo.
• Poetry helps us fulfill the calling of Romans 12:15: to rejoice with those who rejoice, and to weep with those who weep.

Content Questions

• How have you experienced poetry “naming creation”? How do you think Christians can practice this vocation of participating in creation through language?
• What does it mean to “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant”? How can poetry’s indirect approach help create connection in ways that plain language might fail?
• How do the Psalms help us to understand what it means to “weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice”? How can we look for that in other poetry?

Application Questions

• Think about a time in which someone close to you has been either “weeping” or “rejoicing.” How did you meet them there? How could poetry help you do this in future circumstances? What might that look like?
• What can your church or other Christian community do to incorporate and share poetry? Come up with some actionable ideas whether it’s engaging with poetry in scripture or elsewhere.
• Make a plan to use and encounter poetry yourself in a way you hadn’t before participating in this course. Whether it’s buying a collection of poems, listening to Professor Van Engen’s “Poetry for All” podcast, or some other way, challenge yourself to be drawn into poetry now that you’ve encountered it in this course.