Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Outreach/January 2013

 Membership report The parent Christianity WikiProject currently has 354 active members. We would like to welcome our newest members, Alliereborn, Iselilja, Peterkp, and Sosthenes12. Thank you all for your interest in this effort. We would be able to achieve nothing here without the input of all of you. If any members, new or not, wish any assistance, they should feel free to leave a message at the Christianity noticeboard or with me or other individual editors to request it.

From the Editor Ichthus is one of the ways that the WikiProject Christianity’s Outreach department helps update our members. This newsletter is one of the ways we do try to help people keep up with the project. We would always welcome any input for things to be included in it or additional editors to keep it going. Please let us know if there are changes you would like to see in the format, or if there are any particular things you would like to see included. And if you have anything you would personally like to add, by all means let us know. The talk page of the current issue is probably the best place to post such comments. With that, I wish you all happy reading!

P.S. Please [ click here] to add the new Christianity noticeboard to your watchlist to follow the latest discussions relevant to WikiProject Christianity and subprojects.

By John Carter

Church of the month This image of Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Tallinn, Estonia by User:Poco a poco was recently promoted to Featured Image. Thank you and congratulations for the great image!

Contest of the month No particular contest this month. I am however getting rather close to getting together a more or less complete set of articles relating to different areas of Christianity which can be found in recent reference sources on the broad topic of Christianity, and about various subtopics, which I hope to have finished in the next few weeks. I wonder what the rest of you might think of, maybe, making the contests of future months be basically directed at filling in the gaps of our existing coverage of topics, like those topics given significant coverage in specialized reference works which we don't yet have content on, and giving the thanks, and rewards, whatever they might be, to those who create and develop such content. I am starting a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Christianity noticeboard, and would very much welcome any input from interested parties in how to set it up, determine winners including how many winners, etc.

By John Carter

Featured content and GA report Since the last report, the image in the "Church of the Month" section of this newsletter was promoted to Featured Image status.

Darzu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes, BWV 40 by Gerda Arendt and others, Teuruarii IV by Lemurbaby, KAVEBEAR and others, and Peace on Earth (Casting Crowns album) by Toa Nidhiki05 and others, were all promoted to GA status.

Also this past month, the DYKs on the main page included St James' Church, Cardington by Peter I. Vardy, Bishop's Palace, Kraków by Poeticbent, Kippinge Church by Ipigott and Rosiestep, Trinitatis Church, also by Ipigott and Rosiestep, Steindamm Church by Olessi, St Laurence's Church, Church Stretton by Peter I. Vardy, Monastery of the Holy Trinity, Meteora, by Peter I. Vardy, Sonrise Church, by Aboutmovies, St. Peter's Episcopal Church (Albany, New York), by Daniel Case, All Saints Church, Claverley, by Peter I. Vardy, and Church of the Holy Virgin Mary of Lourdes, by  Poeticbent. Our profoundest thanks and congratulations to all those involved!

Christian art

The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder  This image was created by User:Dcoetzee. Thank you, Dcoetzee!

Spotlight The Spotlight this month turns to the the Syriac Christianity work group. The scope of this project includes the various traditions of Syriac Christianity, including the Assyrian Church of the East, Ancient Church of the East, Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox Church, Chaldean Catholic Church, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, Melkite Greek Catholic Church, Syriac Catholic Church, Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, and Saint Thomas Christians. One of these groups, the Assyrian Church of the East, is considered by scholars to have probably been, for several hundred years, the largest Christian grouping in the planet, with its numerous members in Central Asia and Eastern Asia. Numerous texts, traditions, and practices unique to these groups exist, including the Jesus Sutras and the belief of the Assyrian Church of the East that the bread they use in the preparation of their Eucharist uses the same basic yeast as that used in the bread of the Last Supper itself. Sadly, given the linguistic barriers to much of the content relative to these groups, and the comparative lack of notoriety they have in the Western world, much of this content does receive less attenion, and thus less development, than much other content. There is a large amount of extremely valuable historical material here still waiting to be adequately developed by editors with an interest in the topic, and I personally very much hope that we can draw more attention to these topics, and the content related to them.

By John Carter

Calendar This coming month (mid-January through mid-February) includes The Presentation of Christ in the Temple or Candlemas and the Conversion of Paul. Other major feasts in the next month include those of Saint Agnes, Saint Francis de Sales, Saints Timothy and Titus, Thomas Aquinas, John Bosco, Saint Agatha, Paul Miki, [{Saint Scholastica]], and Saint Anskar.

- Help requests Please let us know if there are any particular areas, either individual articles or topics, which you believe would benefit from outside help from a variety of other editors. We will try to include such requests in future issues.

Ichthus is the newsletter of Christianity on Wikipedia &bull; It is published by WikiProject Christianity For submissions contact the Newsroom &bull; To unsubscribe add yourself to the list here EdwardsBot (talk) ~