The EpiscoQUEST

Hello, World! It's the first post, so the statement is obligatory, right?

Welcome to my new blog, the EpiscoQUEST. I have never been very successful at journaling or blogging. I usually fail to post on a regular basis. If you know me, you can find various attempts at most of the major blogging sites from various points throughout my life. But, yet again, we'll give it a go.

The EpiscoQUEST, you say? Yes. I am a mobile, traveling professional. For my job I stay in one place for only a few months at a time, and then move on. So while I'm in a spot, I like to explore the various churches. Predominately Episcopal churches.


Yep. I'm an Episcopalian, and pretty fond of it. In addition to the theology (and the theological freedom) of the Episcopal Church, I find the Anglican tradition very deep, very broad, and very diverse. But there are gigantic problems that face the Episcopal Church in the United States that perhaps only someone such as myself can observe. I move from church to church and see great things, and yet see common problems that the average person who regularly attends the same parish would be immune from seeing. I am a stranger. I have anonymity.

As a society, we are becoming more secular, more individualistic, more instantly-gratified. The Episcopal Church is having a hard time dealing with the complex problems with which today's church is presented. I am of course addressing the obvious problem of dwindling attendance and the graying membership. I am young-- in my late twenties. But as I visit parish to parish, I find myself not only the youngest person there, but most often (and with very few exceptions) the youngest one there by almost 30 years! At a diocesan convention I recently attended, it was said that with the sustained rate of decline in attendance currently seen in the Episcopal Church, as an institution, we will be closed by 2025. This is shocking given the once great status of the church.

So as I explore each parish church (in the Episcopal Church, and possibly in others if for whatever reason I check out something else), I'll talk about it here. And I'll be up front with what I think and what, as a newcomer, I feel walking in. I'll post pictures as possible. I'll discuss the problems that are obvious to me as an outsider. Here's my hope: at each location, I will feel invited and welcome. We are the church that "Welcomes You!" after all. We have a tendency to make our welcome either so warm it's awkward or stoically ice cold.  We're good people! We just have a hard time being The Church in the modern era.

Come join me on this adventure! We'll explore everything that American Anglicanism has to offer!