Christianity Knowledge Base:Community Portal

Welcome to the CKB Community Portal! This is the central discussion page for any issues or announcements related to CKB. If you are starting an extended discussion on a specific topic, please use that article's talk page; you can then link to the discussion here, something like, "I've got several comments about the Jesus page that I'd like people to comment on." Content from before May 2006 is located at Archive 1.

Does this site consider all, any or some Latter Day Saints to be Christians??
I'm RLDS myself, and I consider myself to be a Christian. I am unsure whether Utah Mormons are really Christians or not. Some definately aren't in my opinion, but then, some definately aren't in every denomination. (even Tim LaHaye would agree with me on that point, evidently)

I would suggest that this "Christianity" wikia adopt some kind of policy defining what a "Christian" is relative to the "Christian Point of View". Perhaps a Christian is anyone who claims to follow Christ ... but that opens some doors to some divergent beliefs that are definately non-Christian so its rather muddled really.

I have started my own wiki site (not on Wikia) to document the beliefs of my own faith. I think that when the project has reached a point where it gives one a good idea, a majority of Christians would agree that my church is in fact, a Christian denomination just like any other, whatever else they might think about it or other groups unique ideas. I would like to perhaps foster some kind of working relationship between this Christianity wikia and my smaller wiki so as to give readers a good idea of as many different views on issues as possible. --BenMcLean 16:05, 8 May 2006 (UTC)


 * This page might be useful to you. It looks like the community here is trying for a quite inclusive definition of "Christian", which I think is great.  To me, the key is to label each difference clearly so the reader can see who believes what and the differences between different Christian groups.


 * Looking around your wiki, it looks to me as though a lot of the content would fit well here, and that there is certainly room for interaction between the two wikis. -- sannse (talk) 08:49, 9 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah. We have a different POV of course but alot of paralell research. I will make it a point to cross reference between articles I write on RLDSWiki and paralell articles here. By the way, RLDSWiki has now become a Wikia wiki, making it a sister of this one. An interwiki link exists - so to link to RLDSWiki you can do this wikia:c:rlds --BenMcLean 16:46, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Where next for this Wiki?
Now that some of the contributors here have forked, and moved their activity to another wiki, it's time to look at the future of this Wikia. I assume that nsandwich no longer wants to be the founder of this wiki, so we need someone to adopt. We will probably need a couple of new admins too. Is anyone interested in these roles? It's a shame that there are now two competing wikis about Christianity, but I'm confident that the benefits Wikia brings will help keep this one alive and flourishing. -- sannse (talk) 08:50, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Until a few minutes ago, I wasn't even aware that this Wiki still existed independently of the ChristWiki. I thought it has moved, not that it had schismed. BTW ChristWiki has become rather Catholic lately (Traditional Catholic, not Roman Catholic) now that Nsandwhich has imported the public domain (and often obsolete) Catholic Encyclopedia. Archola 12:28, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
 * As Mindspillage and I said when Nsandwich first talked about getting his own server (see above), there will always be a Christianity Wiki here at Wikia. It's a great subject, and not one that we would want missing from the Wikia Family.  Of course, the content is GFDL, which means everyone has a right to fork, but I'm sure that the Christianity Wikia will stay alive and well. -- sannse (talk) 13:52, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Hiya. There were a number of reasons for moving to a new server. I think the overriding one was that this page wasn't getting indexed by the search engines, even though I tried to add it numerous times. I don't know what the reason for this is, since google refuses to respond to emails :) ChristWiki just got its first visit from googlebot a few days ago and has started to be indexed, which I think is of crucial importance.


 * Another BIG reason was that Homestarmy pointed out there were anti-Christian adsense ads appearing that I frankly found to be offensive. Certainly they might send the wrong impression to those visitors who are not aware that the things along the right side of the page are not endorsed by us.


 * Anyway I prefer not to think of this as a schism of sorts. Christianity has already had enough of those, I think! :) It was meant to be more of a move. However, I see no reason why these two wikis can't share and collaborate. I will be devoting most of my time to ChristWiki, but I do drop by and check on this one every once in a while. In terms of passing along the foundership, I think that's a good idea. Can someone create a nomination page for new founders? We can vote and then I'll hand over the adminship. Thanks for everything, folks! :)


 * -- nsandwich 19:43, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Goggle is a strange thing. This site comes up second for "Christianity Knowledge Base", and first for Christianity Wikia, but not until page 4 for Christianity wiki.  Wikia is in the middle of talks with some experts in search engine optimisation at the moment.  That should help us find out why these strange results happen and how we can get them giving us the results we need.


 * Google ads are another thing we can sort out for this wiki. I didn't know that there were problems or I would have let you know about this.  We can block a certain number of sites from having ads here.  And we are happy to do that in any cases where the ads are felt to be offensive.  It has to be done selectively, because we only have a small number of block spaces, but there is certainly the potential to remove problem ads.


 * Please folks, if there are any other issues, let us know. We can't fix them is we don't know about them :)  Some of the points nsadwich raised earlier are replied to above, and I'm happy to add to that any time.


 * On new admins, I think the first thing is to find out who wants to keep their admin rights here. Please note that this is not a choice between the two wikis.  If you want to keep your rights here, and edit primarily on the other wiki, then that's just fine.  I think it's fair that you should be willing to at least call in here every now and then and check recent edits, and the more active you are the better of course! but that's all that's asked.  So please say here if you are willing to continue as an admin here on the Christianity Knowledge Base.  Many thanks  -- sannse (talk) 09:04, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Redesign
With the two wikis looking very similar, I think it might be an idea to redesign this one to show its individuality. I've been trying out some changes, and a possible new logo. To make sure you are seeing the latest experiment, please force a refresh on your browser (Ctrl F5 for most). So any thoughts? It's too orange for my taste at the moment, although I like the logo itself. Maybe a paler parchment background and a different colour scheme for the tabs and so on? Or has anyone some completely different ideas? -- sannse (talk) 13:52, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Sannse, I think it looks great! -- nsandwich 19:35, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I took out the background, which I think was too much, and I'm not sure about the colours... I really hope there is someone here who can make a new scheme for the site...  More feedback people please ;) -- sannse (talk) 09:04, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Sannse, this site looks much more alive than before. I suggest the use of a different logo(possibly a picture of a church, just an idea), and a little bit of background around the navigation menu. By the way is it possible to use CSS?


 * Thanks ---inkybutton.

Yes, I like the design but not the pink color. Ditch the pink. Go with a blue or purple or red or something --BenMcLean 16:22, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

inkybutton: yes, the CSS file is at MediaWiki:Monobook.css, it's possible to change just about anything in the look of the site. I like the idea of a background, I tried a couple, but couldn't get one that worked well enough. The one that Ben has at RLDSWiki is very nice - subtle, but clear. So if you have any ideas for backgrounds we could use, then please say. Same for the logo - if you have a good (preferably free) image that we can use that's great. I was trying for something non-denominational... what about the same idea, but with a different coloured sunset?

BenMcLean: I agree the pink is too much. I think if we can find a better logo, then we can match it to that. Or for now, I'll have a go with some different colours and see if I can find something that works.

-- sannse (talk) 08:12, 17 May 2006 (UTC)


 * OK, I've changed the logo and colour scheme to something less... pink (it was supposed to be sort of orange, but...) You will probably need to force a refresh to see the changes (Ctrl F5 for most systems).  There is something a little strange going on with the top tabs, I'll have to get somone with better css skills than me to have a look (anyone here good at stylesheets?)  But please let me know what you think, and whether you have any ideas for improvements... or maybe a totally different scheme... up to you -- sannse (talk) 12:40, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I love the new blue look!! :) --BenMcLean 22:18, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

The ChristianWikis Project
Just thought I'd inform all of the members of the about the ChristianWikis Project. It aims at unifying the Christian wiki community... and providing a central place for people to come together, talk about their Christian wikis, and share ideas. Almost every day it seems like another Christian wiki pops up. I'm not advocating one-wiki-for-everything, I'm just saying it'd be cool if there was a place where all the wikis could communicate, and ultimately make each individual wiki even better. :-) If this at all interests any of you, please head on over to this address http://wikible.org/christianwikis --Tom 23:31, 24 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Sort of like a Christian Meta Wiki eh? That would be good ... --BenMcLean 16:35, 5 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Link seems inactive now :/. Homestarmy 18:53, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

EVANGELISM
I am very interested in modern approaches to sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. What ways are being used effectively to bring the wonderfully good news to affluent communities in the U.S.?


 * Well there might be a conflict of interest in your question there, you ask for modern evangelism and then ask for effective ways :/. As I understand the figures, using "modern evangelism" gives a fallout rate of around 95 percent; that is to say, people here a lovely sounding exhortation to believe in Jesus, and the vast majority of them fall back away from the church as if they were never saved in the first place. See what happens is modern evangelism goes a little something like this: "Good morning boys and girls. I'm here to tell you that God has a....WOOOONDERFUL plan for your life. You see, if you ask Jesus into your heart, you will gain many many good things. You'll get love, peace, joy, happiness, a new car, your mortage payments will go through on time, etc. etc., so come on down to the church today! We only want to sing nice songs with you.....come be our friend.....joooooin usssss......" Yea, see, its not a very strong message really. Sure, it doesn't go exactly like that, but im just making a loose summary, the point is, the ways being used aren't effective these days. As for working on affluent communities, the problems of the modern gospel multiply several times, why should people who are well-to-do even respond to the modern gospel at all when they often times already have what they consider to be happiness from their money or success?


 * I could try to help you out and teach you how to give a stronger message which will actually save people mostly, but it could take me a very long time to type it all out, the explanation gets involved. In short, you've got to do what Jesus did, and use the Law to reach out to people. In the parable of the woman at the well, Jesus reminded the woman of her sins before giving her the good news, something modern evangelism would probably shun since its not a happy-go-lucky sort of message. The best way to evangelize would therefore be in line what what Jesus was doing, namely, to use the Law of God to show people their sins and thusly give them the real reason to come to Christ, not to get money and success, but to be given eternal life, and avoid the condemnation of an infinitly just God who must judge sin, and thusly, would send anyone who is not saved to Hell. If you have a good bit of free time, go to this website [here], read and listen to as much as you can, (Preferably starting with the audio message entitled "Hell's best kept secret") and if you have any questions, come back and ask me. Homestarmy 07:37, 5 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah, evangelism has been a much-discussed topic lately in my church, both locally and internationally. In international mission fields, there has been an "explosion" in the last few years, according to a paper I read yesterday, but it's been rather slow going here in the U.S.
 * It is quite possible that, unless evangelism in the U.S. improves for my church, we may have more foriegn members than domestic. (we're based in the U.S.) --BenMcLean 16:31, 5 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I too have heard these stories about explosive growth on other continents, I hear numbers like 200,000 people in China being converted a year and whatnot, and I think even some Islamic imam type person sent out some warning that "Islam is being sent in retreat in Africa as Christianity is taking over". I do not, however, know what sort of message these people are recieving precisely :/. Homestarmy 06:21, 6 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah, nobody's sure what they should be converting people to - hence our little "What is a Christian?" discussion. --BenMcLean 17:36, 7 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It's possible that the numbers may be artifically inflated as well, considering many who "make a decision" for Christ may never actually show up for church ever again or show any sign of being born again :/. Homestarmy 18:51, 9 July 2006 (UTC)


 * That is not so much of a possibility in my church as it is in yours. I mean, people might leave after only being members for a while, but since we practice literal baptisms by immersion, and then only for people who make an informed choice and obviously take it seriously, the number of actual members is counted, not just "converts" --BenMcLean 15:48, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Well im talking the number of Christians as a whole from all denominations, not yours in particular :). 68.219.82.144 21:19, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

An open letter to users and administrators of the various different Christian wikis
Hello,

Thanks for reading my two cents worth. As a bit of background information, my name is G. Grove and you can contact me at graham_grove@yahoo.com.au to discuss any of the following issues. I've been involved in Christian wikis for a while now. In fact, I first tried to set up a Christianity book in wikibooks 2 years ago, but then I discovered that there were three other Christian wikis at the time and I left the wikibook and joined WikiChristian. At the time there was also Compass and Theopedia, but not anything else. In an attempt to try and get WikiChristian used more I started the wikipedia article "Christian wikis" and have since watched an explosion of links appear. That there are all these people wanting to be involved in spreading the gospel and knowledge of Jesus and Christianity through wikis is a wonderful thing. I especially respect those users and administrators who acknowledge other Christian wiki sites as well as their own. Every one of these wikis has some excellent points. Theopedia is full of academic articles; wikible is intelligently set out; biblewiki is commendable for its extensive linking; wikiChristian is admirable because of its attempt to cover all things Christian including be a directory for all the churches of the world; and I could go on and on about each wiki.

Despite all these wonderful qualities and the hearts behind them, I believe Christian wikis are failing in what I see as their two most important objectives in glorify God. Firstly, to be a body of knowledge where Christians actually come to learn about a topic, and to actively be involved in writing and updating articles; and secondly, to be a witness to non-Christians about what Christianity is all about. It is obvious to me that the wikis are not used by more than a couple people for each site, and that non-Christians are not reading them either. Why is this failure occurring?

I believe there is one very important overriding fact that is stifling the use and growth of all of these wikis. They are all essentially modelled closely on Wikipedia. Why is this a problem? Well, wikipedia is a great encyclopedia – a fantastic reference and very useable and helpful. So, if I want to know about say, the “Coptic Orthodox Church” why would I go anywhere else?! I would only go anywhere else if that anywhere else presenting the information differently and allowed me to easily see what I was most interested in. I might for example be interested in knowing about the persecution of the Coptic church in Egypt today. To learn about that, I am going to want read testimonies about peoples experiences living in Egypt. I might want to know about the formation of the Coptic church. To learn about this, I am going to want to firstly read an encylopedia style overview article about the council of Chalcedon and monophysitism, but then I going to want to read different peoples views on interpreting these topics – their opinions are important because I know that there are many interpretations – there is not perhaps one “Christian viewpoint” for this. However, I might want to find a local Coptic church to visit – and so I would need a list or index of Coptic churches – their addresses and service times and what language they were in. Now Wikipedia wouldn’t be a particularly useful source for some of what I want and certainly isn’t set out in a way that it is easy to find some of that information. No, the wiki I am looking for would be different, however, it just doesn’t exist currently.

There are also lots of other little factors that I believe stifle the growth of the various Christian wikis. These include


 * 1) The use of unhelpful usernames. Why can’t we all use our real names as our user names. It makes us less anonymous
 * 2) The complaints that seem to arise whenever someone writes an article in an essay style presenting his viewpoint, rather than in an encyclopedia style. Articles should be able to have sentences starting with “I think”. Now these are clearly individual opinion articles, and so need to be marked as such. But Christianity is a personal religion, and people have opinions which differ. “I think” is valid.
 * 3) Vandalism – but I don’t know what to do about that – perhaps the only way to stop it is to have a critical number of users
 * 4) The unwritten rule that an article about the local church down the road is not acceptable. What is wrong with writing an article about my church down the road and writing about its minister, congregation, teaching, music and service times? Nothing as far as I can see!
 * 5) The layout is never particularly logical.

There are I’m sure lots more issues that other people have thought of. And of course you may vehemently disagree with me on each or every point. I welcome comments. Please leave comments on WikiChristian's “Christian wikis” talk page (http://www.wikichristian.org/index.php/Talk:Christian_wikis) (so others can read them, or email me. I have been fiddling with ideas, templates and trialling out different formats for a Christian wiki that I believe would work – it would hopefully be acceptable to those who want an encyclopedia, those who want testimonies, those who want opinions and discussion, those who want stacks of information with directories of churches, lyrics of songs and public domain texts. Please take a look at my version on my home computer (hopefully it is turned on and working if you go to look at it) – www.grahamgrove.dyndns.org and click on the link to Christianity.

Thanks for your time. I think those of us who want a Christian wiki need some discussion, and perhaps we need to put together a larger group of people to work on one encompassing wiki rather than dozens of small wikis.

Graham


 * Here's another problem with Christian wikis: They're hosted on private sites, therefore there is no "centrality" to them. I think this wiki, since it's hosted by Wikia Inc., is more "central". I think it might be good for this wiki to specialize in apologetics.
 * What we could do is perhaps form some sort of ChristianWiki Foundation (sort of like the MediaWiki Foundation) and, under that heading, have a "Christian Meta Wiki", which would work like Meta-Wiki, and under that heading have different projects: One for encyclopedic articles, one for general Christian apologetics that links to wikis of different denominations to show what they think on different topics, one for an international church directory, one for Christian music of all kinds, and perhaps some other projects as well. New projects and/or the joining of existing projects would be discussed at the "Meta-Wiki". If it was done this way, we wouldn't be modeled after Wikipedia, but after the foundation that started Wikipedia - so we'd have all of the advantages without the drawbacks, you see? --BenMcLean 13:54, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I attempted to respond to this same letter and work with Graham at WikiChristian, but I wasn't getting any interest there; plus, the MediaWiki version there is grossly outdated, making it hard to work on. Ben, I like your thoughts about a Christian Meta, but I think CKB could probably serve as this central hub. It is already on Wikia, providing a reliable server location. We could redesign this Community Portal (CP) (maybe even the Welcome page) to emphasize a "Collaboration" page (or set of pages, maybe featuring the Forum namespace). I don't think we would need a whole, separate, site just for collaboration purposes. This CP could also emphasize a separate CKB-only CP. I like your IRC idea below, too.


 * Also, in working on a Christian wikis chart over at Wikible, I noticed that CKB and ChristWiki have very different page counts (528 vs. 11911). Why would ChristWiki have so many more considering that it's a fork of CKB? Does Wikia calculate it differently? See my chart and footnote for more details. --RockOfVictory 20:39, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Ben, I'm sorry. I think I misread you the first time. Are you saying that the CKB should basically be renamed to the "ChristianWiki Foundation"? I think it may be too difficult to totally convert this existing wiki; plus, I doubt that different denominations could agree on the topics that the "meta" would have. Instead, I think that it's important just to have a central community of Christian MediaWiki users; focus would be on understanding the resources that each wiki has, not on creating a meta-topical-encyclopedia of Christianity. Check out some recent collaboration comments over at OrthodoxWiki. --J. J. 01:42, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

"What is wrong with writing an article about my church down the road and writing about its minister, congregation, teaching, music and service times? Nothing as far as I can see!" Me neither. Archola 21:23, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Any other thoughts about the "ChristianWiki Foundation", Archola? --J. J. 13:46, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

What I meant by a "ChristianWiki Foundation Meta-Wiki" was a wiki that is a list of all other sites running the MediaWiki software that claim to be Christian, that also serves as a discussion board about Christian wikis in general - it's a knowledge base about Christian knowledge bases, not about Christianity. It could also contain resources that christian wiki webmasters and users could find helpful, like templates for quoting scripture, ways of quickly copying different versions of the Bible (or even the apocropha or the Book of Mormon) onto wikis, a directory of all different denominations that have wikis and their web addresses, that kind of stuff. --BenMcLean 16:38, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I've created a new page to address this topic: Christianity Knowledge Base:ChristianKM. --J. J. 20:51, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

"Free Content" Christian Devotionals
I was at an evangelism meeting last night with several pastors from my church and we are thinking of trying to put together a newsletter that is basically for going "fishing" for people interested in learning more about what the Bible says and/or about our church. Well, actually the meeting was for a comprehensive local evangelism program, but the newsletter was the main thing that was discussed.

If either this wiki or some other Christian wiki had some basic bible-based Christian devotionals that don't get into contraversial doctrines, it would save us alot of work because then we'd just have to edit them a bit and reprint them, not totally write a whole new devotional series. Would anyone be interested in starting some kind of project like that, and how would we do it? --BenMcLean 15:47, 2 August 2006 (UTC)


 * If by "devotionals" you mean "Gospel tracts", I don't know of any free ones, but if your church can afford it, there's a bunch of great gospel tracts here that aren't too expensive. (Their mostly in packages of 100) Homestarmy 14:14, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


 * No, I didn't mean tracts I meant just ... devotionals ... The things they put on those Christian inspirational calendars. Short basic lessons with scriptures to study along with them. You know ? --BenMcLean 17:26, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Christian IRC channel?
Maybe we ought to get an IRC channel on FreeNode for this project. My church's wiki got one. --BenMcLean 15:50, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Christianity Wikia Chat Room
Christianity Wikia Chat Room

You might also like to check out Chatzy.com if you need a private chat. --Ermeyers

BFS forums proposal
One of our new users has proposed setting up the Forum namespace here. Please see User talk:Ermeyers for the full discussion. --J. J. 14:53, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I second the idea. I first established forums on RLDSWiki just the other day. You may be interested in copying the design of the prayer request board there.

I'd like to adopt this Christianity Wikia
Open Letter to adopt this Christianity Wikia,

I'm a new member of Wikipedia and all of the Wikimedia Foundation projects, and I'm the founder of The Perl Wiki in Wikia at Wikia:c:Perl, and I came here just the other day from The Health Wiki in Wikia at Wikia:c:Health, looking for a little Christian safe house, or safe haven, for some Christianity friendly discussions in a forum about managing a difficult chronic illness called BFS, and I was welcomed warmly. Thank you very much to The Rock of Victory, named J. J..

I am a true Christian, living The Way, The Truth and The Life modelled by Jesus Christ my Lord, and I was originally raised in the Methodist style of Christianity, but I'm very much my own Christian today, because I'm always listening to God with my own mind's eye. My ancestors were some of the original Quakers, and I've been to a Quaker meeting house to honor and investigate their faith. Other ancestors were Mennonites, and my next door neighbors are Amish, and you'll hopefully never meet the Amish here on the internet, but I know for an absolute fact that they are true Christians just like me. To Jesus, His sheep are His sheep, and everyone is one of God's many children. What is important is the real well-defined function and the real and true effects of being a Christian, more than the specific style of worship that you have adopted within your own local church and family.

Differences of Christian Community opinion can always be resolved by patient and thoughtful argumentation, performed in good faith.

I will answer any question, and I will ask my questions right back.

I'm not here for power; instead, I'm here to empower our Christian Community.

Sincerely,

Eric R. Meyers --Ermeyers 21:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Answer #0
One of the first things that I'd do, if I were made king for a day, is change the name of this very special place to The Christianity Wiki in Wikia. --Ermeyers 22:29, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I think that was more a request for sysop, because unless I am mistaken, this wiki has a caretaker already. I would be glad to help also, if needed. -- BenMcLean 22:56, 17 August 2006 (UTC)