www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Thoughts on a new forum area?

Thanks for the interesting ideas.

Michael suggests a new forum for the discussion of books. This could be useful to those studying the Faith, especially if the thread titles were the name of the book.

Father Deacon Lance has suggested separate forums for Faith and Worship.

These are two quite different suggestions. Can we discuss this a bit further as to the type of discussions that belong to each?

A concern here is that too many different forums makes the Forum too complicated. Too complicated means less inviting. I occasionally participate in a couple of forums where they have neatly and logically divided the subjects into about 20 forums. Most of the forums have little or no participation and I find myself only using the �Today�s Active Topics� link because I don�t want to have to click my way through all those forums.

Also, maybe this would be a good time to discuss the general organization of all the forums that make up the Forum. In the past few years we�ve added the �Focus on Scripture� and �Kliros� forums. What do people think about these? Is there a better way to organize the subjects to make it easy for newcomers as well as attract more participation?

Admin

Administrator,

What we really need is a forum on the relevance of religion in our life. Pope John Paul II and now Pope Benedict XVI have stressed this is the single biggest factor for the decline of the Church in the West.

I am not sure what the focus should be for the new forum. Should it be directed to the question of Atheism? Rather it maybe it should be directed toward the belief all religions are equal. Maybe still it should directed against Materialism.

Either way I think this is the single biggest problem facing the Church in the West today.

My 2 Cents!

Dear Eli you said:

I say:

I tend to agree, which is why I rarely ever press the report button. When discussions are deleted, or topics are ended prematurely, it doesn't give one a chance to explain their position.

Maybe the 'new' forum could be combined with another one, such as Focus on Scriptures?

Zenovia

The new category might comprise discussions of texts on the topics of Scripture, doctrine, liturgy, devotions, lives of saints, church documents, church history, faith and reason, moral theology...and so on.

It surely would take some of the traffic away from the supra categories as they exist now [BTW I personally like the formation of the current supra categories very much.]

That diversion of traffic on more serious and contested topics into a category devoted to discussion of texts would allow for an easing and opening in the other categories, and it would be possible to instruct the members that this new category, though not tolerant of personally cutting remarks, may contain more content that might be construed by the casual or sensitive reader as sharp and contentious.

That codicil would allow for a different sort of moderation then without causing inordinate offense, because of the "Let the reader beware" understanding established for that particular category.

Eli

How about: Theology/metaphysics/philosophy/historicity (historical context)/patristics/scripture exegesis

Administrator:

Would you consider a forum on prosperity and healing? Father Sid Sidor at St. Athanasius BCC in Indianapolis would most likely moderate it.

All the best,

Scott

I'm doing some organizing of possible new forums this week, so anything is possible. Please have Father Sid contact me if he is interested in such a forum.

How about an "Iconography" or "Sacred Arts" section?

Dave

Since a lot of the threads in the �Parish Life� forum are not exactly about parish life we are thinking of moving all of the threads in this forum to either the �Faith & Worship� or �Town Hall� forums and then renaming the Evangelization forum to "Evangelization and Parish Life". That way we can eliminate a possibly unnecessary forum and make room for a few new ones. The new "Books" forum (moderated by Michael B) is already online. Father Sid Sidor of the Eparchy of Parma has asked to host a �Healing & Grace� forum which is almost ready to go public.

Your thoughts and ideas?

I love this forum.

As an iconographer I love the idea of an "iconography/sacred arts" section as suggested by Chtec.

I admit that when I visit here I often do not have time to read everything. Having more defined topics would help me check out my interests quicker which would be nice. (but... more topics might make it too busy)

May God bless all of you who work here. Keep up the great work.

Fr. Bo

P.S. I will make more of an effort to encourage others to join including my parishioners and fellow clergy.