Discourse Community

In order to conduct an analysis of how Christians have undermined the cause of Christ through their involvement in the culture wars, I conducted a textual analysis of stories/lessons from the Bible and an ethnographic research of various social media and speeches made by famous Evangelicals. I was able to locate these stories and lessons from the Bible through previous knowledge on certain parables, such as the parable of the lame Beggar who received kindness from Jesus’s disciples rather than judgement for his particular lifestyle, as well as reading through the New Testament to find information on Christianity’s mission given to Christians from Christ. I then began to look at social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube to

Located in the heart of downtown Cedar Rapids this Historical brick building with its’ decorative molding and beautiful stain glass windows is the home of a subculture of biblically based Christians. This church family meets every Sunday like many churches who revere Sunday as being the Lord’s day, set aside for rest and worship of God. Biblically based Christianity is a vast culture of faith in God carried out by many subcultures called churches, made up of people who seek to worship God and to foster a personal relationship with him. One of the most important things that make a subculture is a question of what is it that brings these people together? This foundational question is not only the question of the subculture, but is also the defining

            Christianity fulfills Swales’ first criterion by having a set of common goals such as spreading the faith, achieving enlightenment, and spreading good morals. Spreading the faith complies members to gain knowledge to recruit new members. For example, a church may have an event inviting members of the community out to talk about their faith in the hopes of recruiting new members. Achieving enlightenment in the Christian community

Galindo analyzes that the fundamental “mission” of a congregation is the same as any other congregation that exists in any part of the world. He argues that though every congregation has a mission and a vision, at the same time, it shares a basic common mission. (43) This reminds me of my home church The First Church of Evanston and my Field Site, The Evanston Vineyard Church. Both churches have a common mission of welcoming people to the church, irrespective of their ethnic, cultural, racial, and economic and, gender backgrounds. The mission is to help people be received in the house of God with due and deserved Christian love so that they feel loved and welcomed. Both these churches encourage church attendees to attend the service and receive the Eucharist.

This discourse community consists of people who believe in God and follow the principles of the bible. Despite what people outside of this community may think, it is not full of people who think they are better than anyone else. The people who make up this community are far from perfect, but are striving to improve themselves through learning the bible, with one belief holding them all together. I am a part of this discourse community. It is tied to my primary discourse, because I have been in the Church since I was little, and have grown up in its values. To be apart of this community, you simply have to believe in God, believe in what Jesus did for all of us, and have a desire to learn to live your life right through learning the bible.There

Life is like a massive highway that have infinite routes anyone can choose take to reach some type of designated goal. Those various routes lead to distinct exits, where one can discover a group or groups that share similarities dealing with viewpoints, beliefs, or understanding towards a particular goal. These groups can be identified as discourse communities. According to, “The Concept of Discourse Community,” in the textbook, Writing About Writing, John Swales stressed that in order to be classified as a discourse community the group has to have all six defining characteristics. Swales emphasized, “A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals, mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback, utilities and hence processes one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims, acquires specific lexis, and has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discourse expertise” (Swales, 221-222). Keeping this key detail in mind, there is numerous type of discourse out there.

John Swales defines a discourse community as a group of people that has an agreed set of common public goals, ways to communicate with its members, to provide information and feedback, genre(s) that the group may further communicate its goals, lexis, and a threshold level of members (220-2). The group I chose to study St. Luke Church of God in Christ, St. Luke COGIC, bears the qualifications to be a discourse community. Founded in 1925 by Millissis Shannon and her husband Charles with only twelve members, pastoring St. Luke COGIC is Elder E. A. Shannon with over eight hundred members (St. Luke Church of God in Christ). This church is a great church to attend and has several activities, groups, departments, and ministries for any person at any age. Some of them include Sunday School, music, men’s, women’s, youth, children’s, and Bible Study and they all help to reach the community and lead people to Christ. The church’s mission statement states that their purpose is, “to function as a Christian fellowship where the gospel of Jesus Christ is preached and the ordinances and doctrine of the church is taught and administered…” (St. Luke OB). My goal while observing and interviewing people was to figure out how people praise and worship the Lord at St. Luke COGIC on a Sunday.

What is a discourse community? A discourse community is an interactive group that shares common discourses. Meaning that they share a common set of values that similar towards others. Most of society belongs to a discourse community that share values or even similar personalities. The discourse communities I joined needed to reflect my personality. For example, I like culture and I like to involve myself in some culture-based activities such as Art or even Culinary Arts. Ideally experiencing diverse cultures other than my own would directly geared towards my personality traits. Here are a few. My personality is more of an introverted style; it mostly consists of my shyness near groups. I love taking care of children and teaching, but I do not

A discourse community is defined as a group of people involved in and communicating about a particular topic, issue, or in a particular field. We all belong to multiple discourse communities.To earn a position of a discourse community one must possess accurate knowledge, establish reliability of members to be accepted and learn to persuade other members of the community. The discourse community that I identify with personally and the profession I plan to pursue is the world of film production. However, there are many jobs that need to be done on a film set leading to there being multiple discourse communities within the film industry, what I want to focus on specifically is the DP, otherwise known as the “director of photography”. According to “The Concept of Discourse Community,” by educator and researcher John Swales, a discourse community is defined by six characteristics.

Many people believe that that the motivation of the Christian church is to radically “change the world”. However, through his book To Change The World, James Davison Hunter explains how this common believe is a misconception. Rather, he shows readers that, from a sociological perspective, while Christians thrive in many areas of life by reaching others individually, they fundamentally components of creating cultural change.

A discourse community is a group of people who share a set of discourses, understood as basic values and assumptions, and ways of communicating about those goals. John Swales defines a discourse community as "groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals." The community I choose to identify with is special education. Special education teachers, or aids, really dedicate themselves and their time to others who need special assistance or treatment. The California Department of Education supports high quality educational programs for California’s big student population. According to the ideas from the federal government, the variety of the education working environment is one of the fastest growing areas of the American economy. The importance in understanding this career includes emotional, and physical growth of each student. Working with students who have disabilities can be very rewarding, but it is sometimes emotionally demanding and physically draining. Before stepping into the job of becoming a special education teacher, it is important to understand the patience that is needed in order to work with special children.

Discourse communities are all around us, which can include a sports team, academics, and many others. However today I am focusing on a discourse community that relates to my major, criminal justice. In order for me to understand swales six characteristics I interviewed a homicide detective relating to criminal justice. A discourse community is a group of people involved in and communicating about a particular topic, issue, or in a particular field. A discourse community is defined by six characteristics. The six defining characteristics of a discourse community require a set of common goals, there must also be mechanisms of communications within the community as well as feedback among members. Genre, the fourth characteristic, describing the various methods of output. The last two are terminology, and expertise. In order to really understand that criminal justice is a discourse community, I had to do research, and interview an expert in the field. To be a part of a discourse community, one must be credible, possess factual knowledge and draw on the values of its members to be accepted into the community. At the same time a person must learn typical ways people in that community communicate and argue. They share a certain genre which is a type of writing. Members of discourse communities provide information and feedback that are imperative in order for that discourse community to grow. My interviewee, Carol Mims, is a child homicide detective. She is an alumni here at

Of those who benefited from the cultural toolbox theory, the NSYR noticed four particular theological accents devoted teens exhibited: identifying with a creed of what to believe, belonging to a community which acts out God’s story, feeling called to live out a larger purpose defining why they are here, and possessing a personal hope to hold onto how they should live. I can’t help but critique this assessment. Although such qualities are commendable, such a normative move could be recommended for any age of any religious or non-religious affiliation. Dean uses a more Christian application of theology as she encourages the concept of a missional imagination. Dean emphasizes the missional imagination of the gospel which rules out Moralistic Therapeutic Deism with “human traditions of divine love; people whose words and actions do not grasp God as much as they reveal a God who grasps for us” (64). Drawing from the language of dean on page 100, this missional imagination should be used not only for the transmission of the gospel across countries, but also across generations. The first concept of the missional imagination is found in the indigenizing translation of the concept that Christ makes his home among us, participating in human culture and accepting us as we are while still sinners. The “pilgrim principle” of testimony transforms us into who Christ wants us to be by ejecting us from our comfort zones. Finally, the liminal principle of detachment takes place in the blurry ambiguity between two worlds when a space is created for both the human and the divine encounter. If adolescents don’t exhibit the fruits of using a cultural toolbox theory as well as a missional imagination, their faith life (or lack of faith) can resemble a farm with a fence. Instead of identifying the farm of Christian faith by whether the adolescent is inside or outside of the fence, the church

Chua’s discussion focusses on a specific example of a village that has animist practitioners coexisting churches within the same community. It is important to note that communities can be and often are pluralistic and at times contradictory, thus conversion is relational and temporal. Chua focuses also on Conversation around the relationship between ‘old ways’ and conversion, or not to Christianity and the idea that conversion is a space that incorporates both non converts and converts alike.

Lohfink, Gerhard. Jesus and Community: The Social Dimension of Christian Faith. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984. Kindle.