Talk:International Churches of Christ

message: , you've removed a sentence from the lede, citing this RfC close, but the sentence wasn't about the Singapore case. Has there been a mix-up? Cordless Larry (talk) 07:00, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: @Cordless Larry, my apologies. I'm half dead from lack of sleep after being woken up by a 21 month old before I got a full night's sleep. I've reverted myself. TarnishedPathtalk 07:07, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry to hear that - and thanks! Cordless Larry (talk) 07:38, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Post-RfC

message: STATEMENT OF SHARED BELIEFS (2006)
On or about March 11, 2006, a document entitled “A Plan for United Cooperation” was released in multiple languages for consideration by churches who collectively identified worldwide as the International Churches of Christ. https://disciplestoday.org/plan-for-united-cooperation-translations/. The purpose of the Plan as stated was “to affirm and enhance the unity of the family of churches known, since 1992, as the International Churches of Christ.” On August 5, 2009, the Plan for United Cooperation was acknowledged when the International Churches of Christ reorganized into regional families of churches.  https://disciplestoday.org/plan-for-united-cooperation-summary/. The Plan for United Cooperation contains a Statement of Shared Beliefs by churches participating in the International Churches of Christ that is summarized below:
The doctrines of the ICOC as reflected in the Statement of Shared Beliefs (2006) include a recognition of the identity of God as the Father, Son (Jesus Christ) and Holy Spirit and recognize the Bible as the inspired and infallible Word of God. A belief in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the message of the Gospel and the responsibility of each Christian to share the Gospel and God’s love to a lost world are key tenets of the church. The church’s beliefs focus on the church community through sharing in fellowship, community worship and weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper. Individual responses by church members include the conversion experience through immersion in water baptism, personal discipleship to Jesus Chris and living by a standard of holiness according to the Bible. Other stated beliefs are that decision-making responsibilities of established congregations reside within the individual congregation rather than through an over-arching governance structure, a recognition of the vital role of women in church ministry, the importance of communications within and outside the ICOC being genuine and respectful and the recognition of mature conflict resolution as a priority among congregations. Meta Voyager (talk) 12:58, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Would you propose that https://disciplestoday.org/plan-for-united-cooperation-summary/ is used as support for all of the statements in the second paragraph? TarnishedPathtalk 13:18, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: No, the support for the statements in the second paragraph is found in the Statement of Shared Beliefs section of the document entitled, "A Plan for United Cooperation" that was introduced in 2006 and can be found at https://disciplestoday.org/plan-for-united-cooperation-translations/.  The reference to the "Plan For United Cooperation Summary" from 2009 and related link at https://disciplestoday.org/plan-for-united-cooperation-summary/ contains a link to the Plan for United Cooperation and is to document its subsequent adoption by congregations who self-identified as participating ICOC churches. The second paragraph is an attempt to briefly and factually summarize the Statement of Shared Beliefs as published by the ICOC. Meta Voyager (talk) 14:08, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: So no secondary sources, then? This prompts the question, of all of the documents that the ICOC has produced, why are we highlighting this one? A secondary source would help establish why this is worthy of inclusion. Cordless Larry (talk) 15:03, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the comments. This secondary sourced article was published on March 1, 2023 in the Christian Standard and references observed strengths of the ICOC that corroborate in many respects the description of the summarized ICOC beliefs from the Statement of Shared Beliefs (2006). The sourced article reflects NPOV by also describing historical and present weaknesses of the ICOC. The source describes many of the historical challenges faced by the church under the leadership of Kip McKean and subsequent efforts of reform beginning in 2001. https://christianstandard.com/2023/03/who-are-the-international-churches-of-christ/. All of this information has factual relevance to the ICOC article and is not presented for the purpose of self-promotion. The author is not a member of the ICOC and the Christian Standard, founded in 1866, is not an ICOC publication. @TarnishedPath @Seraphimblade Meta Voyager (talk) 15:58, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: That source doesn't mention the Statement of Shared Beliefs. Am I missing something? Cordless Larry (talk) 16:58, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: No, the Statement of Shared Beliefs is not mentioned and my comment was that the list of strengths "corroborates in many respects the description of the summarized ICOC beliefs. . ." Sourcing for the ICOC article is challenging, in part, because it is identified by Wikipedia as a topic of "Low importance" in the categories of "Christianity" and "Religion: New religious movements" and the church by most accounts has a relatively small worldwide membership of less than 125,000 members. Yet, the article has so far been determined to satisfy WP:Notability and, in my view, editorial flexibility should be considered in order to assure that accurate, balanced and current information about the ICOC is included. The discussion in the now-closed RfC on about-self sourcing on the beliefs of a religious organization provides some guidance on how to do so and this proposed addition to the Beliefs section is an attempt to comply. Meta Voyager (talk) 18:00, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Articles aren't "About Us" pages. They should be primarily based upon what people unaffiliated with a subject have to say about it. If the answer is "not a great deal", then what the article says will also be "not a great deal". That's true for many subjects that just barely scrape by notability. But we don't fill the article with fluffy stuff they write about themself just for the purpose of filling space. Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:33, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

text: That's a large amount of text for there not to be any secondary sources. TarnishedPathtalk 03:12, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

text: Why does this start "On or about March 11, 2006"? Is there uncertainty about the precise date? Cordless Larry (talk) 13:51, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Good question. The posted publication date stated on the webpage for the multiple translations of the Plan for United Cooperation is March 10, 2006. See, https://disciplestoday.org/plan-for-united-cooperation-translations/. I was trying to accommodate the time zone variation of a worldwide release of this document in multiple languages. I agree that March 10, 2006 is a better date to use in citing this document. Meta Voyager (talk) 14:19, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

text: Kind of "mission" style fluff. Without any secondary sources showing this to be significant, I think this is way too much of their own marketing to include. Seraphimblade Talk to me 06:45, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

text: Yes, I agree. It feels important, but we need secondary sources to establish that properly. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:47, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I might disagree but in the end we both came up with the same conclusion. North8000 (talk) 19:05, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Edit request (STATEMENT OF SHARED BELIEFS (2006))