The Episcopal Café

Many of us blogaholics are already familiar with Jim Naughton’s Daily Episcopalian. Recently it morphed into (or more accurately, became a subset of) the Episcopal Café – a collection of four blogs, published by the Diocese of Washington (D.C.). It was reviewed the other day by Pat McCaughan in Episcopal Life Online in her article Episcopal Café serves up nourishing spiritual food online. I encourage you to read that article because it goes beyond hyping the Episcopal Café and reaches into cyber-possibilities for the church. Here’s one quote:

"Unfortunately, there's not yet developed a strong consensus among the elected and ordained leadership that the cyber voice of the Church is important," said Knisely, chair of the Standing Commission on Episcopal Church Communication. "But I think we're starting to have the tools in place, and there's beginning to be the recognition that doing work in the cyber world brings great challenges, but also brings great rewards, allowing us to reach out to people who we normally wouldn't be able to reach."

And another from Jim Naughton:

Although the café is still "in its early days," Naughton foresees eventual inclusion of podcasts, video, and other multimedia to appeal to both tech-savvy youthful and more traditional audiences. "We are in very earnest conversations with a potential video partner," he added.

"We're trying to hold one audience while reaching out to the second one," Naughton said. "We want people who are interested in fighting the fight on behalf of the inclusive church to feel this is a place they can find aid and comfort and, at the same time, we're trying to reach out to a younger tech-savvy audience that might not yet be willing to step through the door of a church but is more than willing to explore the world of religion on the internet. So, it's a bit of a trick, trying to reach the insider and outsider audiences at the same time."

But I think my favorite part of the Café is the Art Blog. There’s always something wonderful to see there. My favorites right now are “Transfiguration: Dwellings” and “Our Lady of Good Counsel Interior.”

Check out the Café. You'll be glad you stopped by.