Talk:Church of Wells

Coordinates
I've looked for a place that might be considered the headquarters of this church. Recent reports say that the building which they had been using for worship services at 31.48915°N, -94.93879°W has been sold. Their listing with the state of Texas only gives Post Office boxes. While an argument could be made that their gas station / restaurant / meat market at 502 Rusk serves as their headquarters, that's unwarranted original research. I think that we're going to just have to leave the coord missing tag in place until some place is reliably sourced as their worship center or headquarters. Regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 14:46, 19 June 2014 (UTC)


 * A permanent building for the group has been under construction since approximately May 2014 and near completion. On property belonging to the only Wells local to be recruited. Adjacent lot to a member's property where a number of them live on Forest Road in Wells.31.49217°N, -94.94929°W
 * The group continues to use the now-closed R&R Mercantile building. Skjoldur (talk) 20:47, 7 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for this information and for the link to the photo, below. We can't use the photo because of our copyright rules, but it's still interesting. This report from a local TV station says the building is not yet finished, "but will one day be the new home of worship services for the Church of Wells" (emphasis added), so we can't list it as their headquarters yet, but it's useful information for the future. One question: The report I linked says that this is at about the place that your coordinates point to, the corner of Booker and Forest. Do your coords point precisely at the building, at least getting it on the right side of the streets, etc., or are they just approximate? How did you get the coords? Thanks again for the information, and best regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 13:29, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Removal of criminal investigation re baby death
I just want to note that I concur with this edit by Pinkpills, but not for the reason given in the edit summary. There are plenty of reliable sources for the assertion removed in that edit (though the source given there isn't one of them), but the criminal investigation ended with the charges being rejected by a grand jury (per this source among others) and (a) leaving the allegation in without that information is NPOV and (b) leaving it in with the information that the charges were dropped is both is NPOV, prohibited synthesis by implication, and gives the criminal investigation undue weight. Regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 13:25, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Miscellaneous
News photos of Church of Wells building (ANDY ADAMS/The Lufkin News): http://lufkindailynews.com/news/local/article_088d9b80-e0cd-11e4-bb5c-0f1bd9a62417.html?mode=image

70 adults, ~60 babies, toddlers and +- 10 children between 8 and 13. An Australian franchise - "Australia's Midnight Cry" - in Wollongong now has 10 adults/4 babies. Skjoldur (talk) 21:35, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Does the Church of Wells have a social media site available? Sēer Derek 00:08, 3 May 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by BaldBarber67 (talk • contribs)

Cleanup
I've removed quite a bit of stuff:
 * Material which was not supported by reliable sources (as defined by Wikipedia) as required by the verifiability policy or which was about third parties (i.e. this church) but which was supported only by self published sources, which is prohibited.
 * Sources which were not themselves reliable.
 * Material which violated the external links policy.
 * The photo of Catherine Grove, which focuses the article too much only on controversy and which is not generally representative of this group.

I'd remind anyone seeking to add it back in that they need to comply with Wikipedia policy and remember that Wikipedia is not a soapbox and I'll be happy to discuss any of my edits here and, to the degree I have time, to help folks who want to put stuff in this article to try to do so in a proper manner, if possible. I have no fondness for this group, but I do have a desire for Wikipedia to get things right and to follow its usual policies and practices. Regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 20:39, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Nacogdoches
Someone has added back in the claim that the church is both in Wells and Nacogdoches. Rather than removing it this time, I've tagged the claim because at least one reliable source now refers to them as a Nacogdoches group. I rather suspect that this may be a Wikipedia-induced error where the reporter saw the reference in Wikipedia during the time it was included. I'd ask that the editor or editors who keep wanting to put it in actually provide some real proof that it's in Nacogdoches; I have no problem with that being included if it's true and can be proved through a reliable source which really makes a point of the location or locations of the church since Nacogdoches is not mentioned at all on the church's website. Regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 19:50, 29 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Follow up: The Chronicle article linked above is the only one about the Osteen heckling that mentions Nacogdoches, all other sources which say anything geographic at all (e.g. this one and this one) say that the hecklers (not the church, per se, but the hecklers themselves) were from Wells, Texas. The Chronicle piece seems even more to be Wikipedia-induced error. — TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 20:14, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Copy and pasting
We run "copy and paste" detection software on new edits. One of your edits appear to be infringing on someone else's copyright. We at Wikipedia usually require paraphrasing. If you own the copyright to this material please send permission for release under a CC BY SA license to permissions-en@wikimedia.org per WP:CONSENT. Even if this was appropriate detail for an encyclopedia (and it might be), reverted edit https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Church_of_Wells&diff=669691439&oldid=669682127, it should be be paraphrased. Thx.--Lucas559 (talk) 21:47, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Accusing others of apostasy is part of what makes this church noteable
This Church is noted, perhaps most noted for it's accusations that other Christians are not real Christians. Based on that I do not think there is an issue with citing news articles that talk about their disruptions of other churches' services. Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 23:16, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

I re-added a previous edit about members of this church disrupting another church service. It had been removed by someone citing BLP. Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 23:23, 25 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I don't have any problem in mentioning that they disrupted the services, only about the charges (see below). Regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 04:30, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

The Controversy section reads a bit like an argument for this group being a cult.
I think this section is at least partially written from a bias. Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 23:22, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Specifically these sentences: She said that she is not being held against her will, and was only "seeking the Lord",[4][5] This is consistent with the accounts of several other members who have cut off nearly all contact with their friends and family.[4] Based on these incidents, the Church of Wells has often been called an emerging cult.[4] On April 2, 2015 Grove left the church and returned to her family in Arkansas.[6] However, she returned to the church only twelve days later (April 14, 2015).[7]

Any thoughts? Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 23:25, 25 April 2016 (UTC)


 * This article is plagued with POV edits by both supporters and critics of this group. I've been trying to maintain balance and enforce WP policy without supporting either side, but UNDUE, part of the NPOV policy, says, "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." Nearly all of the RS about this group have been about its controversial nature. What the group has been called in RS is what it has been called. If bias exists, it's in the RS and we're supposed to report it. Regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 04:46, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

BLPCRIME and accusations
Re this edit reverted by Elmmapleoakpine. We expect readers to click through to the reliable sources supporting article. When we say that people have been charged with a crime and the RS names them, that's a clear violation of BLPCRIME since it directly leads a reader to the names. I'd have no objection if you would like to rewrite that edit to only refer to the disturbance without mentioning the criminal charges, even using the same RS. Alternatively, I'd have no problem if you can find a RS to support the article text that does not name any specific people, but mentions the criminal charges in general, though I'm a little queasy about the application of BLPGROUP in that situation. Regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 04:29, 26 April 2016 (UTC) User:TransporterMan


 * That works for me. I don't think the arrests matter one way or the other.  It is like an arrest for trespassing during a civil protest.  :) Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 20:35, 26 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Good deal and thanks for revising the material. Regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 02:31, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Belief section restored
I have restored the Belief section to its status as of 02:25, 14 May 2016. The text removed is as follows:

The principle thing for Sean Morris was stated: "For a long time - many years ago - God has shown us, showed Ryan, and Jake I that we are called to be a Josiah generation. we are called to see a revival of the Church of God right before the judgments of God. I say all this brethren to bring to your mind this principle thing that we are setting our hearts to... And because this is the principle object of our pursuit. We need to understand what it is. We need to understand how it will be done in our lives!". This leads some to fear that the Church of Wells could be another tragic end-time cult group like Jim Jones.

Other quotes from elders, and members of the Church of Wells have led to controversial dialogue over the use of extra-biblical revelation to support the elder's claims to be inspired by God. The elders support the use of prophecies, dreams and visions as guides, and spirit inspired direction from God through the elders.

Some of the quotes in this vein would include the following:

“Brothers, you have to understand, like, we’re your elders in the Lord. If God didn’t speak this to us, he wouldn’t have spoken it to you all. You wouldn’t have heard him. This is God speaking to you.” ~ Sean Morris

“The means by which they’re going to attain the blessing of the covenant is going to be through the endowment of the gifts upon us – specifically the elders, secondarily you all….It’s the elders who are being fully endowed and gifted with the gifts of the spirit that causes their pathway of perfection to be secured.” ~ Sean Morris

"I plead with him of how the Lord has called me by this movement to be a prophet to the nations and, peculiarly to this movement. I told him that I was not speaking these words lightly or foolishly, but as one sent from the presence of God, speaking in the name of the Lord. " ~ Jake Gardner

Elder Sean Morris' wife Preethi wrote on her blog: "Sean Morris is the true doctrinal leader... He is faithfully guiding the brethren through the Word and “The Condescension of God”, a Spirit-led writing which unfolds the significance of much of the inspired all-sufficient Scriptures". A screenshot of this text block was posted online, but the original quote has since been removed from the blog and explained away as a figure of speech.

Facebook, Clyp, and (worse) exposingthechurchofwells.com and thechurchofwells.org are not reliable sources as defined by Wikipedia, but in some senses worse than that, much here is clearly prohibited synthesis by implication, offering facts with the clear intent of causing readers to draw a conclusion not specifically stated in the cited text (which, of course, must be from a reliable source). This may be able to be replaced if reliable sources can be found, but even then may pose neutral point of view problems. Regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 16:33, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Denial section reverted
I've undone this edit which asserted that "Members of the Church of Wells contend that the information projected in the media is unsubstantiated." with a reference to the church's website as the only source. I did that for one reason, but an additional one has shown up since then after I took a harder look at the church website:


 * The original reason is that the church's website is, obviously, a self published source. In denying the allegations, it is clearly making claims about the makers of those allegations. That violates WP:ABOUTSELF which says that SPS's can be used for information about themselves, but only so long as no claims about third parties are made.


 * The second reason is this. Even if that were a valid source, the link given is just to the top page of the website, not to a page making the claim quoted above. I've flipped through the site and can find no such page or information unless it's buried in something with a generic or unrelated title, so even if that didn't violate ABOUTSELF, it wouldn't be an adequate source because it doesn't document the text it is cited for. (And, let me just note in passing, that the claim in the text is to all the information published in the media, not just some, so even if there were such a denial as to media accounts of a specific incident on the website it wouldn't be sufficient to document the text quoted above.) But let me emphasize again that curing this problem in no way cures the problem in the last bullet point, above, which is alone sufficient to exclude the church's website as a source (and vice versa, for that matter).

Regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 19:34, 1 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I removed that part because my problem was that it was using the church's website to make a general statement regarding all controversies. It also came off as standoff-ish, in the sense that it was the media versus the church. Rather than it being neutral, it seemed to heavily lean towards the section being about the church minus the controversies. Had it been statements from the church in regards to each controversy, my position would be much different. Callmemirela  &#127809; talk 04:26, 3 March 2020 (UTC)