User talk:Merond e/Worship Project

I have started this project for refining the article Contemporary Christian worship. As noted by a couple wise Wikipedians (Ajcfreak and Feline Hymnic), the article is rather sloppy after its merge. The Worship Project page is for working on refining the article. This talk page is for any discussion concerning this project. Anyone is welcome to join and add information.

What Needs to be Refined

First of all, is the fact that the title of the article is misleading to its contents. Here is what FH said:

This article 'Contemporary Christian worship' seems at best confused and at worst biased.

The title could mean a wide variety of different things, such as: Catholic worship since Vatican 2, 'Contemporary Christian Music' (CCM) as a recorded home-listening aid to private worship, corporate church worship with a 'worship song' slant, Taize reflective prayers, Iona Community Christian social activism, and so on and so on...

The opening paragraph seems to be setting the scene across a worldwide range of Christian worship practice; indeed the first sentence takes us across 'Eastern Orthodox', 'Catholic' and 'Western Church'. But then a quick glance through the contents and skim-read across the text shows a very strong bias towards the CCM and 'worship song' aspects, to the exclusion of almost everything else (both worship and non-Western-church).

This article starts off saying one thing ('We're going to cover everything contemporary') but then covers only one single, small aspect (CCM/worship-song music strand).

In fact, is it not thus quite misleading and biased?

I think FH is right, and I think that the best solution is not changing the title but expanding the article to include this other information. Second, the article implies that it is addressing the topic of worship, but then it focuses primarily on music. FH again:

A more subtle, but equally serious, flaw is that the title is '...worship' but the content is almost exclusively 'music'. Many of us with a foot (or more) in 'worship-song'-related traditions tend to think 'music' and 'worship' are almost the same. (As soon as we read such a sentence we immediately protest!)

Again, FH is right. Here is what I said in reply to FH: "Something also needs to be said about how singing in church is often mistakenly called worship, when it is only a part of worship. This probably sprouted from calling the music 'worship music.'" Third, this article needs to be expanded to talk about worship, not just music. I have already said this in one way, but I thought I would make it more clear. This answers FH's question:

A clear decision: Is this about "music"? Or about "worship" (including music, liturgical practice, etc.)?

Fourth, the article needs major style touch-up. FH:

That decision [music or worship], once made, should remain conscious throughout the subsequent revision and writing.

This is only one way in which the style needs improving, but it is, perhaps, the most urgent. The article needs to be consistent. Fifth, the article may get rather large as we expand on the topic. FH:

An overview article: a "whistle-stop tour" across the field

If the article gets large, then we will have to create new articles for sprout-off topics, and then the main article will become an overview. Sixth, some of the sprout-off articles should be music related. FH:

That there should definitely be some music articles, but that each retain a clear focus on what it is, and what it is not, and how they relate to each other.

FH also said:

A set of music-related articles cover all contemporary music fields, some of which would be: CCM (e.g. Jars of Clay), worship song (e.g. Kendrick, Redman), Taize, Iona, Anglican liturgical music, Catholic meditative (Messiaen, Hakim), Catholic post-Vatican-2, recent Japanese hymnody, etc.

A lot of these articles already exist and will need to be linked to the Contemporary Christian worship article. Seventh, after the merge there have been some messes left. These messes need to be cleaned up. AjcFreak said:

1. Merging of related articles on other language Wikipedias:
   1. Worship leader:
      1. pl:Lider uwielbienia
      2. sv:Lovsångsledare
      3. vi:Worship leader
   2. Worship music:
      1. de:Lobpreis und Anbetung
      2. fr:Louange
      3. ko:워십
      4. nl:Aanbiddingsmuziek
      5. pl:Praise & worship
      6. sv:Lovsång
2. Cleanup of the resultant article, re-writing it so that the entire article is cohesive
3. Alignment of images

So that's our task, and I'm sure there is a lot more to do as well. If you have anything to add, feel free to post it here on the talk page. Again, comments are welcome too. --Merond e 06:58, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Worship Presentation Software

I think the worship presentation program section needs to be expanded on. It also needs sources. If it becomes large enough we can create a new article. Here are some links related to worship presentation software: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] --Merond e 08:35, 24 February 2008 (UTC)