Talk:Saint John's Methodist Episcopal Church (Kingman, Arizona)

Correct name
The correct and current name this church is going by is St. John's United Methodist Church. Thank you!
 * The article is about the building that is on the National Register of Historic Places, not about the congregation. You need to show that the congregation itself is notable for Wikipedia purposes if you want to rename it. Even if you are unable to do that, you can still add history about the congregation while it was using the building, including the fact that it has moved to a new location, assuming that you have reliable sources to cite. Indyguy (talk) 04:35, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Hello @Indyguy, I do appreciate you reaching out. This building is currently being used as the Mohave County Public Defenders Office.

I currently work at St. John's United Methodist Church and we are currently trying to update a lot of our social media sites. Our Facebook community page is currently affected by this outdated information and we were advised from Facebook that the only way to change this is to update it through Wikipedia. We are finding sources to show that we have moved to a new building and are in fact no longer using the name Methodist Episcopal Church, because that denomination no longer exists. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AliDevereaux (talk • contribs) 02:08, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Courtesy ping to Indyguy. Other users won't get your notifications unless you "ping" them in your message by using   and signing the end of your post with four tildes  . I've pinged Indyguy for you here. DanCherek (talk) 02:14, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
 * , this article is not about your church. It is about the historic building on the National Register of Historic Places that was Saint John's Methodist Episcopal Church. It would be fine to say in this article that the building is currently being used as the Mohave County Public Defenders Office (with proper sourcing). But this article should not be changed to be about the current St. John's United Methodist Church that is in a different location. MB 02:35, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
 * , when I googled "Saint John's United Methodist Church Kingman Arizona", this article was the sixth entry. The one for your congregation came up first. It's not unusual for a Google search to show entries fairly high up that are not strictly pertinent to the query, especially with church names. As DanCherek said, the best way to handle this is to find a reliable source that states that your congregation moved from this building and it is now being used by the Public Defenders Office. If you can put a link to that source here, I would be happy to update the article for you. Indyguy (talk) 02:59, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

I am working through old news paper articles that have been scanned online, but figured I'd post these two links showing that the current and updated information for St. John's United Methodist Church and another link showing that the Robin Pucheck is working at the current Mohave County Public Defender office, with the address of St John's old church building.

St. John's United Methodist Church- https://kdminer.com/places/st-johns-united-methodist-church/ Mohave County Public Defenders office- https://www.aacj.org/Sys/PublicProfile/31853640

Not sure if these will work, but I am still looking through online newspaper articles in case its not. Thank you so much for your help. Between you and Dan, I am accomplishing far more than I could have ever learned on my own! AliDevereaux (talk) 04:11, 20 May 2021 (UTC)AliDevereaux

I understand that at this point. This is the situation:

Facebook created a Community Page using the information provided on the Saint John's Methodist Episcopal Church (Kingman, AZ) Wikipedia article. I reached out to Facebook about this, and was told that the only way for this to be edited is to do it through Wikipedia itself. After receiving very helpful feedback from (and others) I am still trying to understand all of this.

At the end of the day, this is negatively affecting our church/congregation. Again, I do understand that this article is about the historic building itself. I'm still at a loss at this point because it seems through conversation with everyone, this may not work out. We cannot have this misinformation being sent out to the public, especially considering that the Methodist Episcopal Church doesn't exist anymore.


 * I would suggest you create a your own Facebook page for St. John's United Methodist Church in Kingman and try to abandon the other page created by Facebook. Get as many people as possible to "unlike" that page and move their posts to the new page. I thought that anyone (through a verified email) could "claim" a Facebook community page. So if someone has done that, I would get them to delete all the content. Just start using your own page that you fully control. That is my suggestion. MB 18:05, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Apparently Facebook has changed some of these policies with Community pages. I’m still trying to learn and navigate Wikipedia. I’m just really struggling with understanding why it is difficult to update information regarding this church. I know that this Wikipedia article is strictly about the historic building, however when this article was created our church was not at that location and was not going by that name. Can we provide documentation from the state of Arizona stating that we are who we are?

If a celebrity who has a Wikipedia article gets married and changes their name, does their Wikipedia page have to stay the same from when it was created or can it be changed and updated? If it can be updated, I don’t understand why this article can’t be updated. Just because this Wikipedia article is about the historic building doesn’t mean that our church has to only be identified by this outdated information. Everyone’s information updates and changes and just because we have updated and changed our name does not mean we’ve lost any part of this history. But continuing to put out misinformation about our church is not fair to our business and how we need to operate.

I’m sorry for getting frustrated, but I didn’t realize the can of worms this whole process was opening. ANY continued insight on Wikipedia related things relevant to this article would be much much appreciated 24.156.91.80 (talk) 00:00, 21 May 2021 (UTC)AliDevereaux AliDevereaux (talk) 00:14, 21 May 2021 (UTC)AliDevereaux


 * We have already said this page is about the building, not your congregation. It was created in 2008 using the National Register of Historic Places info from 1984. The building qualifies for having an article because it is notable according to the Wikipedia meaning of that term. Your congregation probably isn't, so it probably can't have an article.
 * Your celebrity analogy really doesn't apply. If a celebrity changed their name, we would change the article to match. They would still be notable as they are the same person and everything else about them is the same.
 * You seem to want us to change the date the building was constructed, its address, etc. Those things haven't changed. I suggested you create your own official Facebook change with your current name and then you would be in complete control. You could even go to the community page and put a big notice there saying something like "The official page for St. John's United Methodist Church is..."
 * We could add something to the article like "The congregation that used the building from 1914 to 19?? changed its name to St. John's United Methodist Church and moved to a new location about 4 miles away outside of historic downtown Kingman", if that would help. MB 02:18, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

If this is just about the building itself, then why is the name of the church still associated with it? Wouldn't it now just be a historic building location? Why can't this be labeled as the Public Defender's Office now? The building itself is not called Saint John's Methodist Episcopal Church and never was. It was just a building that we once used. Now that we don't use it, why is our history being associated with it? I guess I just simply don't understand how a privately owned building can still carry the name of OUR church, whether its the outdated name or not? Can we request not to be associated with this any longer? If it really is about the building then make it about that, not our church's history.

This is not as simple as just "making a new Facebook page", which we've already done, when people in our community look us up on social media the community page that is linked with incorrect information is one that pops up, which we have experienced a negative outcome by. AliDevereaux (talk) 02:26, 21 May 2021 (UTC)AliDevereaux


 * I can't even find your page on Facebook. I can find this one which is under old name and is picking up text from Wikipedia, but has a photo of your building and your website. The last post was made last October. Why don't you have the most recent post there directing people to your Facebook page?
 * As far as the name of the old building, I disagree that it was never known as "Saint John's Methodist Episcopal Church". That's what the sources commonly used, not distinguishing between the building and the congregation - they were one in the same as is common with most churches, schools, etc. MB 02:49, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

That is what I've been trying to explain this whole time. Because the page you linked is a Facebook Community page, created solely based on this Wikipedia article, we cannot post as the church and we cannot request the page to be removed. This Wikipedia article is causing our church to suffer. Therefore, I will be working with our city's local government to get clarification on the actual name of this building. I will provide legal documents when I receive them. AliDevereaux (talk) 02:03, 26 May 2021 (UTC)AliDevereaux


 * You still haven't explained why you can't create your own page with the correct name and let this one wither away. Tell everyone associated with your church to only like/post at your official page. MB 02:17, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Not to mention, I can provide several newspaper articles that show that our church/congregation used this building under the name St. John's United Methodist Church for 33 years. So wouldn't that technically provide the sources needed to prove that this building was in fact referred to under our current name of St. John's United Methodist Church? AliDevereaux (talk) 02:09, 26 May 2021 (UTC)AliDevereaux


 * Sure, we could update the article to reflect anything like that. There could be a section talking more specifically about the "tenants" - it was first used by "Saint John's Methodist Episcopal Church" upon completion until 19??. The church changed it's name to "St. John's United Methodist Church" in 19xx and used the building until 20?? when it moved to a bigger location. After that, the building was purchased by the county and became the Public Defender's office. (with sources). But I don't know how much that will help you, since Facebook will still be pulling the first paragraph with the location. We can't change the location since the building is still in the same place and the article is fundamentally about the building. MB 02:26, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm not asking that this article be changed as far as the exact address, I know this is about the building itself at this point. I'm trying to prove that this building is not called Saint John's Methodist Episcopal Church. Once I get records to prove that, I will provide them, and will expect that the name of the article reflect what these documents show. As far as the Facebook issue, we HAVE created a new page reflecting all of the correct information, and your experience just proves what I've been saying the whole time. The misinformation this Wikipedia article is giving is keeping new people from seeing our current FB page. AliDevereaux (talk) 03:22, 26 May 2021 (UTC)AliDevereaux


 * User:Indyguy, User:MB, User:AliDevereaux, regarding multiple assertions "We have already said this page is about the building, not your congregation." Offhand, that is not how Wikipedia coverage of churches works.  Usually, where there is info available about both a congregation and its historic building(s) and/or modern building(s), all of it is included in one article.  And it may be appropriate to include coverage of a new congregation in a historic church building, and to move the article to the new church name (while still including section on the historic building and its old name).  I have not looked at the detail of disagreement here, but the repeated statements coming down on AliDevereaux offhand seem inappropriately strong and bureaucratic and perhaps wrong in characterizing how Wikipedia usually works for churches.  I will acknowledge that there have been opposing camps, at times, about trying to narrow vs. broaden coverage about churches, but to me it usually makes sense to allow all coverage of the topic of "church", both congregation and buildings.
 * I see a statement in one previous draft that "This is the third church building for St. John's. The church was built in 1997." probably referring to a new building, and "The first church service was on May 8, 1889." It can be appropriate to say in this article titled "Saint John's Methodist Episcopal Church" to discuss the founding of the congregation and its first and second and third church buildings, including one built in 1997.  And if the church congregation renamed to be a St. John's United Methodist Church that can be said, and maybe the article should be moved to that current name.  And a Facebook page can be linked as an external link. --Doncram (talk) 13:53, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I see that User:MB suggested stating something like "The congregation that used the building from 1914 to 19?? changed its name to St. John's United Methodist Church and moved to a new location about 4 miles away outside of historic downtown Kingman"; that would be fine.--Doncram (talk) 13:55, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
 * And, User:AliDevereaux, the article can include an external link to your Facebook page (hopefully named St. John's United Methodist Church (Kingman, Arizona) or whatever is accurate for you now) about the current church congregation, whose predecessor was originally located in the historic building. And, MB, i see the discussion here was more reasonable than I thought at first.  I have seen past disagreements invoking statements like "this page is about X" and "no it is about Y" unhelpfully. --Doncram (talk) 14:29, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Kingman Daily Miner Newspaper
In this Kingman Daily Miner newspaper from March 13, 1992, it shows the updated and current name and address of St. John's United Methodist Church.

Page 5, towards the bottom. https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=YGhAHpnIhDoC&dat=19920313&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

I came across this newspaper article using the website of Kingman's newspaper, now called The Miner. This website hosts the archives of the Mohave County Miner from around 1883 to 2003.

I hope this is the correct kind of article needed. I will continue to search for more sources for the Mohave County Public Defender's office.

AliDevereaux (talk) 05:04, 20 May 2021 (UTC)AliDevereaux

Back of church picture
I removed the picture of the back of the church, as it was a picture of the "front" of Trinity Episcopal Church which is kitty corner from the old Saint John's Methodist Episcopal Church. The back of teh actual old church building has 4.5 windows and looks like this: https://www.google.com/maps/@35.191421,-114.050415,3a,75y,220.5h,80.25t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sP3-ouW2vdg3EvCrAvd_r6Q!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu   -Rayc (talk) 01:11, 20 November 2023 (UTC)