Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

Church

  • 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…

  • Which is more important: the system or the leader? Since arriving at St. Paul’s, which is a pastoral-sized congregation*, I’ve figured out that much of the structure of the church is based on specific leaders doing specific tasks, rather than systems. I’m not sure how to feel about this. *[a pastoral-sized congregation is what many…

  • 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…

  • You know I’m not a dick, right? I have listened to your concerns. We have talked things over. I’ve even come up with ways to accommodate you. I’ve done my part. And having had your concerns heard, talking things over, and been accommodated, you have one small part to play. To quit whining. I don’t…

  • 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…