Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

Resurrection

  • Peter Jumps Into the Water

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    4 min read

    This week’s gospel from John 21 deals with nudity, miraculous fishing, and redefining love. It is a jam-packed resurrection appearance that only could be delivered by that incredible gospel we call John. One part sticks out for me this week. And it obviously deals with Peter. So the disciples are fishing. They are hanging out.…

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  • What I Might Have Preached

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    2 min read

    Since I was on vacation, I didn’t preach this morning. The gospel reading was John 20:19-31, known to many as the Doubting Thomas passage. There are a ton of ways to preach this one, particularly if you aren’t wedded to the idea that Thomas is an unbelieving jackass. Here are a few thoughts that struck…

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  • Overcoming Death

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    1 min read

    We all love Easter. Particularly after a tough Lent. This year’s felt heavy. Each year, I struggle with the scope of the great story arc that we deal with in Holy Week–with the rise and fall of Jesus of Nazareth. Then the fall and rise of the Christ. I have always taken this as the…

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  • Get Busy Dying

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    6 min read

    a Homily for Proper 20B Text: Mark 9:30-37 Location, location, location Three times Jesus foretells his death in the gospel we attribute to Mark. Three times. In chapters 8, 9, and 10. Each one has a similar impact: Jesus’s teaching is misheard, misunderstood, and ignored by the disciples. Last week, we had the first of…

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  • A Growing Church is a Dying Church « The Theological Wanderings of a Street Pastor

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    1 min read

    Sometimes what we all need is some good ol’ truth-telling. The prophetic sort. The kind that we gloss over read each week from Jesus. J. Barrett Lee timed this one perfectly: A Growing Church is a Dying Church « The Theological Wanderings of a Street Pastor. In light of Sunday’s gospel, our call to sacrifice, here…

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  • Sharing the Story

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    5 min read

    a Homily for Easter 3B Text: Luke 24:36-48 Was it Real? This is our third Sunday in Easter and our third different resurrection story. We had Mark’s open-ending with Mary, Mary, and Salome running away in fear with instructions to bring the Good News to the rest of Jesus’s followers. We had John’s story of…

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