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.

  • Growing up, my favorite people in church fell into the “senior” category.  They were the most engaged in my life and were so happy to see me.  I wasn’t a nuisance, even when I was incredibly embarrassing to my parents.  I was so profoundly loved by the seniors at Trinity Episcopal in Alpena, Michigan. This category,…

  • In her post, “Why Ditch The Infant Cereals?” KristenM at Food Renegade makes a compelling case for not giving cereal to babies before they are one year-old.  The case is made of two important arguments: 1) What is developmentally and biologically appropriate and 2) There is no “traditional” basis for it. Against these two arguments,…

  • Tweeting at a wedding: an Episcopal wedding, no less!  Two social media savvy people were married Saturday in a fully-media-integrated wedding.  Their plan, to heavily invest the event with all of their contacts, resides in that wonderful terrain in which we figure out what we consider “acceptable”.  The couple, blogging at #3xCharm, have made the…

  • One of my good church friends is Jimmy*.  Jimmy is a Baby Boomer, served in Vietnam, runs a small business he owns.  He, like many of his generation, grew up going to church and spent the middle twenty or so years not. Jimmy and I would talk about what matters…

  • Sandwiched between two of Jesus’s most famous parables is a small teaching about a lost coin. And it cracks the whole thing wide open. Two of the most recognizable parables sandwich a poor, misunderstood parable in Luke’s gospel.  A parable of revolutionary proportions, often mistaken for an afterthought.  A small, instructive parable that speaks today…

  • A web-friend was recently asked about Halloween and what he thinks about it as a Christian.  His response, as expected, was thorough, honest, and appropriate.  Mine, is well…perhaps a little less so. I don’t really dig on Halloween & Church.  Not because I think it is demonic or sinful or whatever.  And it is not…