Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

reconciliation

  • A Bad Attitude is the Easy Part

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    8 min read

    Jesus offers a pattern for working toward reconciliation that is deceptively simple. He invites us to keep striving for reconciliation.

  • Better Listening — What is at the Heart of Misunderstanding

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    2 min read

    Jesus seems to recast the most important part of forgiveness is its most elementary and necessary component. That we listen to people.

  • After the Interruption

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    5 min read

    This past week, we celebrated Holypalooza for the eighth time in nine years. It was a celebration full of emotion as we long for “normal” and celebrate this joyous opportunity. It also represented a shift in direction; the natural evolution of time and circumstance. The vision of its three founding pastors (now long gone from…

  • Brilliant light for dark times

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    5 min read

    One of the flaws in our thinking is that we see ourselves as needing to be condemned by the one who wouldn’t.

  • While we’re focused on doing it right

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    7 min read

    So much of our energy is focused on what we are supposed to do at any given moment, we hardly listen to what Jesus is saying.

  • Ashes and Hearts – On Fire

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    7 min read

    Most of what we talk about on Ash Wednesday is found in the small part of the Sermon on the Mount we get in the lectionary (Matthew 6:1-6,16-21). The rest of the chapter reveals it means so much more. Ash Wednesday is way more than ashes – it’s the work of forgiveness Ash Wednesday  | …