Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

Faith

The search for meaning, purpose, and relationship. Our need for love compels us to seek it out, and when we find it, share it.

  • Rethink the Gospel for Advent 4B – Who is Mary?

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    5 min read

    Advent 4B  | Luke 1:26-38 Who is Mary? This time of year, everybody’s talking about her. Countless pieces are written, diagnosing her history and declaring her purpose. Many are bent on defending her virginity and others exposing her age. And much like the priests and Levites last week, we’re all trying to figure out how…

  • Rethink the Gospel for Advent 3B – Who are you?

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    5 min read

    Advent 3B  |  John 1:6-8,19-28 Two weeks in a row, the preacher gets to deal with John the Baptizer. And some of the elements sound repetitive. The quote from Isaiah, the preaching and preparing of the way, for instance. It is a subtle switch from Mark to John. And yet, while we might have the…

  • A Better Lord’s Prayer

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    7 min read

    Is it time to change the Lord’s Prayer? “Do not let me fall into temptation because it is I who fall, it is not God who throws me into temptation and then sees how I fell,” – Pope Francis I For many Christians, the ubiquity of the Lord’s Prayer is everything. Because of that, I…

  • Rethink the Gospel for Advent 2B- The Long Beginning

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    5 min read

    Advent 2B  |  Mark 1:1-8 We dive into Advent with an apocalypse, which is the last thing we expect to receive at this moment. And then follow it up with John the Baptizer, screaming about repentance like a wild man and dunking people in the river. This is about the least “Christmas” the church can…

  • Rethink the Gospel for Advent 1B – The Same Old Same Old

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    4 min read

    Mining the Same Territory After spending the last month preaching about keeping awake and preparing for the coming of Jesus, to have Advent 1 start with the exact same message is strangely consistent. For those of us who use the Revised Common Lectionary, we get a gospel for the first Sunday in Year B which…

  • We must start with love

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    6 min read

    We hear all these other things about who we are and what we’re supposed to be, but there is one place we all must start: Love beyond ourselves. Of all things, we must start with love. It is our hermeneutic, our fundamental. Our North Star and compass. Love is the start and our predictor. Most…