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.

  • playing cards

    As I climbed into the car, my daughter told me that she and her Nana were “playing cards” in the backseat.  After a minute, I realized it was a modified version of “Go Fish”. “Do you have some 2’s?” she asks her Nana as I pull out of the parking lot. “Sophia, do you have…

  • Power to the People “Turn it up!  Turn it up!  Power to the people, y’all!” –Public Enemy, Power to the People By now you have heard of the class-action suit against Wal-Mart and this week’s decision by the Supreme Court to throw out the case.  The case made news in two very important ways.  First,…

  • I used to play over 30 hours of video games per week, so as a former gamer, the recent Supreme Court decision overturning a California ban on violent video games on free-speech grounds makes me happy.  I’m predisposed to supporting a maligned and misunderstood industry.  However, it is how  the industry won that is deeply…

  • Phone interviews are different when you are at home most of the day. In the Episcopal Church, our process of discerning a call to ministry in a congregation has several steps.  You put all of your info online, answering a bunch of questions.  Then contact is made, either presbyter to congregation, presbyter to diocese, congregation…

  • This was a first. I was standing in a Holiday Inn parking lot, talking to a search committee, with the signal dropping at random times on my end while my daughter was upstairs, reading books with my parents as I try like mad to sound both passionate about ministry and completely rational. And I just…

  • The most profound thing Jesus ever taught wasn’t something he said.  It is something he did. He split his time with his followers and took on a different posture for each group.  And of course, there are three groups: The Needy Jesus gave his greatest gifts to those most in need of it: his time,…