Drew in Contemplation

I begin this blog with, not with a description of a garden, but of a restaurant. Strange, right? Hang with me. As many of you know, Amanda and I spent a few years doing ministry in Denver, Colorado. In Denver, we were introduced to a restaurant that had one of those heaven-on-earth feelings to it, even though it's not "Christian". It's called  SAME Cafe . (Fun fact: we even had our rehearsal dinner on August 27, 2014 before we got married on the 28th at SAME Cafe!) SAME is an acronym for So All May Eat. Their mission is simple, create community access to healthy food. They do this by asking for donations for their food and by having a volunteer staff. If someone comes in and doesn't have any money to donate for their food, they are invited to work for 1/2 hour. In this video , Brad Birky (one of the founders) says that 75% of their budget is made up of only donations! That's amazing because restaurants tend to be difficult businesses to "break-even

As many of you know, I was recently on a family vacation to Colorado. It was strange being back in parts of the state that I know so well. Before I drive anywhere in Thomasville I triple (more like quadruple) check where I'm going and have lots of second guesses along the way! Maybe it's my fault. I don't drive very much since we live only a few blocks away from the church. Maybe I should drive more... Anyways... the trip was good, and I enjoyed seeing family and old friends. One of the highlights was being able to dig into a book by Philip Yancey called Reaching for the Invisible God (2000). The book was given to me by Theresa Brown (Thanks Theresa!) and, so far, I've found it incredibly insightful and refreshing. Yancey, in the book, speaks honestly of the complexities of faith, doubt and longing for God that's becoming increasingly common to talk about today. It's refreshing. Here's why: Yancey points out, as  Christians, we tend to be idealistic pe

This is a sermon that I'll be preaching this Sunday in Rwanda. I hope you enjoy it! (Read Acts 2:1-21) Our text this morning gives us a glimpse into the reason for the coming of the Holy Spirit. The people of God before this time, of course, had moments of receiving, relatively, short experiences with the Holy Spirit, like what we see in King David’s life, but never was the Holy Spirit “poured out”, as Joel prophesied, in such a way until the Day of Pentecost . However, we need to recognize that, at that point, the disciples knew very little about what the Holy Spirit was capable of and what would happen when it arrived. We know from the Gospel accounts that Jesus taught about the Holy Spirit while with the disciples, made a promise about its coming and was baptized in the Holy Spirit in Luke 3. Before the Day of Pentecost Jesus was the only person to be constantly filled with Holy Spirit. But, Jesus’ explanations of the Holy Spirit’s power seem more pastoral than specific

If you consider Thomasville First United Methodist Church your home church, you know that next week me and 9 others will be traveling to Rwanda for a short-term mission trip. TFUMC has a long history (close to 17 years) with some people there and make an annual trip to continue those relationships. Since I came on staff here, I've been assisting the team in training activities. Most of these trainings have been centered around cross-cultural awareness because, as you probably know, when you go into another culture it's important to recognize that the way you think, communicate and perceive the "good life" might be different from those you are visiting. When stepping into another culture it's important to be a learner. One aspect I wanted to highlight for the team was how money is dealt with in Rwanda and surrounding countries. How money is handled here in the US and in many parts of African is very different. I wanted to learn more about this and so I int

You’ve probably heard this before: Context is everything . Most of us would agree with that. For example, when we hear a shocking story on the news, we want to know more about the situation that led up to that event. We want to know the context. So, what do we do? We follow the story on the news and sometimes go to other news sources, or social media, to find out other angles and more information on the story. This is like how we should study the Bible. Of course, bearing in mind that the medium is different . When we find something interesting in Scripture we should ask, “Why was this written in this way?” “What events led to this writing?” “What is the author’s goal in this writing?” The way of studying the Bible that I want to propose in this blog is focusing firstly, and primarily, on the Literary Context . So, what does it look like to study the literary context when studying the Bible? Let me first tell you what it’s not. It’s not interpreting certain passages of Scr

Hey Everyone, I'm working on a post about how to study the Bible more effectively. In it, I walk through how to read The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:2-17) in their "Literary Context" (That's a good thing to Google if you want to know where I'm headed) and how they are (1) a remarkable gift and (2) a reorientation tool for the purpose of turning a group of slaves (with a broken identity) into worshippers (with a restored identity). Exodus is an amazing story of God being generous to His people. It has many correlations for us today in the Christian faith. My study has been meaningful so far, but it's still a work in progress. I look forward to sharing it with you next week. Here's something to read in the meantime by the person who taught me this method of studying the Bible that I discuss in the forthcoming post:  https://scriptureandlife.com/2012/03/31/literary-context/ Many thanks, -Drew West