This week, Peter continues our ‘We Do Prayer’ series by suggesting that the Psalms are essential to the praying life. Jesus and the early believers instinctively reached for the psalms in prayer - perhaps we should too?
You can find the full message on our YouTube and podcasting channels.
Yesterday, @_peterburton concludes our series on the signs and sayings of Jesus from the gospel of John, and we hear testimonies of how Jesus has changed the lives of 8 people being baptised!
Some answers to my FAQ’s:
1 - Yes, I still play guitar.
2 - No, not very often.
3 - Yes, you should definitely subscribe to my new Substack, Burt Offerings, where one day I will reveal how the worlds of biblical theology and guitar shredding are intricately connected, a matter which I know many of you have been wondering about for some time now.
Hey friends. For a while now I have wanted to start writing - and the adventure begins today!
I’ve started a Substack called ‘Burt Offerings’ (couldn’t resist, sorry) where I’ll be posting digestible but in-depth explorations of Scripture to begin with, and then possibly writing on other topics down the road.
I’m really grateful to @garden____city who have helped get this project off the ground, allowing me to focus on writing, and also to @charliekangphotography for making me look like I could in fact be a semi-decent writer.
My first piece is called ‘The Intrigue of Ecclesiastes’ and you can read it now by clicking the link in my bio. If you like it - subscribe & share. Thanks for your support!
Summer 2025 was a good one.
1 - 10 years since ‘I do’
2 - The reunion was sweet!
3 - Cousins ❤️
4 - Unprompted chalkboard messages from Willow
5 - My sister’s 40th!
6 - Found all my old hand-painted Lord of the Rings figures, you’re welcome.
7 - Wrote & submitted my master’s dissertation, let me know if you want to read 16k words on Torah-meditation in the Psalms, I’m expecting quite a queue.
8 - Isla & our Goddaughter Joely on the best West Wittering day we’ve ever had!
9 - Got the giggles at Chichester Cathedral.
10 - Quiet moments with Willow at our favourite local spot.
11 - Our amazing team @emmrd
12 - A rare moment of quiet at Wildfires Festival.
13 - I had to practise that bit more than I care to admit but dang it was fun.
14 - This guy turned 5 and fell in love with Star Wars.
15 - ❤️
A German, a South African, an Irishman and two Brits walk into a bar…
Unbelievably grateful for a few days away with these guys, cycling around the Belgian countryside singing classic 90s pop songs at the top of our lungs, having Belgian beer by the canal in Bruges, eating waffles, asking each other good questions, and laughing until it hurts.
In Appreciation of S.H.
(or any other writer you’d prefer)
How is it that, in this detached, electric world,
I can come to feel familiar with someone,
Though we never sit at table together?
A man goes about his labour,
Academic, guttural in this instance;
Tilling his patch of ground in steady obedience.
Decades pass and here am I, feeling a gaze upon me,
As his words rise from a page he will never touch.
They inspect me: my life and my ideas.
After a time they retreat back
To their lines and spaces, unchanged,
And I proceed, charting my course anew, changed.
Half-term is no time for half-measures.*
1 - Family time in the prayer room @emmrd
2 - Xander & Judah’s first rollercoaster 🎢
3 - Friday night is pizza night pt.1
4 - Friday night pizza night pt. 2
5 - Faceplant
6 - Learning to slide
7 - Coffee date
8 - The girls at Paultons Park, it rained literally without stopping but we didn’t let that stop us.
9 - ❤️
10 - First rays of sunshine for 2025 @rhswisley
*Not pictured are the wisdom teeth I had removed, you’re welcome.
‘All I Wanted Was A Car’ by Brad Paisley - cheesy lyrics like most of his music but dang it’s got some serious guitar playing 🎸
There’s a story with this one - it’s the first song I ever heard by Brad Paisley and it rocked my world. I think I was 19 or 20, and it was the first time in ages I’d heard something where I couldn’t understand what was being done on the guitar just by listening to it. Turns out he has this device inside his guitars called a G-Bender which lets him do all sorts of fun tricks. I’ve put off learning it for years but finally decided to figure out if I could play it without a G-Bender!
