Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

Christianity

  • I marvel at how low the expectations are for leaders in The Episcopal Church in their commitment to a life of faith. I also marvel at how many hoops we ask of those moved by their faith. To stand for vestry (our congregational boards), you have to show up for church a few times a…

  • I’ve spent much of my life searching for more from church. More from the institution. More from myself. I want church to be important and to mean something and it doesn’t always feel like it does. When I first heard of Church of the Apostles years ago, I was certain from that moment that if…

  • Check out this short excerpt: “God” is not God’s name | The Theological Wanderings of a Street Pastor. God language can tie people into knots, of course.  In part, that is because “God” is not God’s name.  Referring to the highest power we can imagine, “God” is our name for that which is greater than…

  • Glazed Eyes

    Why do they hate to think? That’s the take away I get from looking out from the pulpit and seeing glazed eyes. I can say with complete honesty that I’m not that used to it. But launching into the Trinity, by talking about orthodoxy and heresy–something that I believed would pique interest–seemed to have the…

  • When my friend, David Henson wondered on Facebook where all the Pentecost posts were, it exposed me. Not that the world rotates around me. It’s just… I haven’t been here. My mind has been elsewhere. I wonder if they all are. All the minds, that is. All the minds are elsewhere when it comes time…

  • Today is the fifth anniversary of my ordination as a presbyter. Of course, I’m celebrating appropriately–writing sermons for a funeral on Saturday and for Pentecost on Sunday. Rather than reflect on all that I have been a part of over the last five years, I am instead struck by this picture. It dawned on me…