Update - Evangeliad Publication and Blogging

The Evangeliad

Good news on my forthcoming book! The Evangeliad: The Gospel in Poetic Form is moving rapidly through the publication pipeline over at Resource Publications (Wipf & Stock). We're finalizing the typesetting for the interior proofs this week, and collecting endorsement quotes for the cover at the same time. Feedback has been really encouraging so far, so I'm pretty excited about this project. Here's a quick advance snippet from one of my endorsers, an Anglican bishop:

"The Evangeliad is a rare and radiant gift to the Church. Matthew Burden has taken the familiar story of Jesus and rendered it in a poetic form that feels both ancient and astonishingly new. These lines move with the cadence of Scripture, the tenderness of devotion, and the sweep of epic storytelling. As one who loves the Gospel and serves the people of God, I commend this work with joy. It invites the reader to slow down, breathe deeply, and behold Christ with renewed wonder. Burden’s craftsmanship honors the biblical text while opening a doorway into contemplation—an invitation to sit in the shade of beauty and let the story of Jesus speak again to the heart. My prayer is that The Evangeliad will enrich the devotional life of individuals, families, and congregations, drawing many into deeper love for the One whose glory shines through every page."

We don't have a release date yet for the manuscript, but I'll certainly post the date here once we know. If any of my blog-readers would like to serve as an "advance reader" for the manuscript (read a free digital copy first, and be ready to post an Amazon review as soon as the book goes public), please reach out to me at the contact info on my church's site (see the email address listed for me at the bottom of the webpage: www.calaisbaptist.org/contact). It's generally recommended that authors try to arrange for a few readers' reviews to go live on the publication date, as that really helps the book's Amazon algorithm. So if that sounds like something you'd like to do, just drop me a line.

Blogging

Good news, too, for longsuffering readers of my blog. With my busy slate of book-publishing receding in the rearview mirror, I'm actively planning to get back to the blog. Not at the scale of my old one-post-a-day schedule, but I'm committing to one post per week (usually on a Friday). I had contemplated migrating my account over to Substack to look cool and fashionable like all the other writers, but then I decided I don't care about that, so I'm sticking with the old functional web-dinosaur, Blogger, for the time being. I'll probably leave aside my recent course of posting church material, but if you happen to have liked the occasional Bible-study video post from my church ministry, those will still be available via the church's public Facebook and Youtube pages. I'll also be adding some of the links to my Q&A study series to the blog's "Resources" page, even if I don't post them directly in the main feed anymore.

My plan, starting in July, is to post as follows: on the first Friday of the month, I'll be putting up some of my nature photography, accompanied as always by a text from Scripture or liturgy for reflection; on the second Friday, I'll post a new original hymn; on the third Friday, a prose reflection or thinkpiece (possibly a new memoir-style series reflecting on the church); on the fourth Friday, a rough-draft selection from my new project, The Evangeliad: Acts of the Apostles. Yes, that's right, I'm going to do a second volume, even if no one but me and my friend the Anglican bishop ends up liking the first volume. These monthly Evangeliad posts will not represent the entirety of the new book's text, but sporadic selections. And as for what I'll post on those rare fifth Fridays of the month, well, that's anyone's guess. We'll see what comes up. And as readers of my blog know, there's always the off-chance that my brain will get running full-tilt down some random tangent here or there, which might end up producing excessively long blog articles even if it's not a Friday! So keep your eyes open, friends. I appreciate your support, and look forward to celebrating the grandeur of God together through the beauty of his creation and the written word.