Discourse Community of a Christian Community

In the University of California, Davis, there is a surprising amount of Christian

fellowships available for the enrolled students. One of the aims for many of these

Christian communities is to provide a way for students to practice their religion on

campus grounds while being away from their community at home. To go further into

research, I went to thoroughly investigate a Christian community called Davis Christian

Fellowship, which is a student-run association. During fall quarter of last year, this

specific group caught my attention by passing out flyers of their events for the first week

of instructions. This discourse community used the genre of advertising with flyers to

catch the attention of the public about their group. The flyers are simple and

straightforward, advertising a week of events the fellowship will provide for new comers

in order to persuade them to join. In their case, it is to believe and have the morals of a

Christian and to serve their lord, or otherwise known to them as God. This is the main

goal for this community along with recruiting new people through flyers. The goal to

increase membership is reached by this group opening up to anyone without any

exclusion. This is because of the communitys belief that everyone is a child of God

therefore; everyone should be coming home. Based on this specific group, I have come

to a conclusion that a discourse community is a community that is a group of people who

share and agree with the same values, morals, ideas, and put in the same effort under one

goal.

To proceed into my primary research, I went to attend the weekly meetings this

group had, in which they referred to as their large group. The meeting consisted of a

worship session with a couple of songs that the group of people would sing along with.
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This showed me that an important part of their weekly routine is to completely surrender

their attention to praising their God. This is not really what I would consider a goal of this

group but a wanting. Something that they voluntarily do as a group, not because they feel

obliged but because as they explained to me, Its something that we cannot help but do.

Our love for our father has an urgency to be expressed. Its not a rule we follow because

we absolutely love to worship. (Amber, 2017) Afterwards was a speaker who gave a

sermon/speech about a few versus in the Bible. This group being a religious group has

certain morals and values that they require themselves to follow. They claim that

revolving around these morals helps them make decisions, balance relationships, handle

problems, etc., in order for them to get closer to their God. The values and morals that the

community has when it comes to spiritual moments, is solely centered upon the

relationship between themselves and their lord, God. They claim that there is a higher

power in the universe and also state that we as humans cannot depend on ourselves for

the many difficult encounters in life without the help of God. This is the main core

understanding that this community agrees upon because this affects the decisions they

make. In an article called God Glorified in Mans Dependence by Jonathan Edwards, the

author claims that, there is an absolute and universal dependence of the redeemed on

God. (Edwards, 2) The people in this group agree upon the statement that because God

is perfect, only he can be able to fix any problem; that is, if he knows that the problem

has to be fixed. This implies that it is up to no one elses judgment but Gods, to decide

whether a problem should be solved or not because only he knows the purpose of the

problem and the outcome of it. The language that this community uses is the respect they

give to the higher power that they look up to. One of the members named Amber went
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further into detail, giving examples such as instances when she was lost in a decision, the

people in her community would encourage her to communicate it with her community

and most importantly, pray about the problem to their God instead of trying to fix it on

her own. She says that it is emphasized to her from her peers that she needs to remind

herself to be humble in her ability to control big problems and therefore need to

surrender it to God.

When I went to visit their weekly meeting, the first thing one can notice is the

welcoming table. There are a couple of people surrounding the table who were the

welcoming committee. They seemed to welcome everyone who walked through the

doors, especially those who seemed hesitant to walk in. This was because as stated by one

of the welcome members, when one seems hesitant to walk in, it is usually because they

are unsure of what they are about to commit themselves to. Sometimes all they need in

that instance is a push. (Pamela, 2017) This was interesting to me, gave me an insight on

how much these people are devoted into investing in new comers with their feelings

towards the community, and an idea in general of joining a ministry. With those people, I

have observed that they would introduce themselves then ask the new comers questions

like How did you hear about us? which usually answered in, through a flyer or

through a friend and questions that revolved around the new comer. The committee

would also mention up coming events that they recommend for the new comer to check

out or visit. In other cases, they would in some way advertise free things that came along

with being a new comer at their meeting such as a free mug, a free lunch/dinner with a

staff, etc. The total purpose of this welcome table as explained by one of the committee

members, is to show those who dont think they belong, a place where there is
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acceptance despite their backgrounds and past incidents that are tied to them. (Pamela,

2017) This I recognized ties into their morals and their goal of accepting every son and

daughter of God. This as I have mentioned before, helps me understand that the actions

they want to genuinely portray is of the personality of their God

While attending this meeting, I have proceeded into conducting interviews for my

primary research, in which I interviewed a few people who were either already a part of

this ministry or a complete new comer. I asked each of them two questions: one, about

their thoughts on the ministry when they were first welcomed, and two, how they felt

while attending their first social event for the ministry.

The first interviewee: Amber Williams

This interviewee answered the first question by explaining how welcoming everyone was

and how they tried hard in making her feel special and not left out. She exemplified an

encounter with a specific person, which really helped her become close and personal with

the general group. This showed me that the welcoming group had met their common goal

to pour out their hearts to new comers.

With question two, surprisingly the interviewee was honest about her first social

encounter with the group stating that it was hard to connect with people because

everybody already seemed to be in their recognizable groups. Her turning point was that

there was one person who opened up to her so freely, which inspired herself to do so to

the whole community.

Observation: The first interviewee seemed to emphasize that the love they received from

the community is relevant to the love from Christ. This community seems to focus on

showing personality traits of their God instead of their own, which can be questionable to
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the outsiders whether if the community is genuine or not. The interviewee states that, It

is genuine because we try to understand why our God wants us to treat people this way. It

isnt a simple follow-the-directions process but the community also wanting to genuinely

know how we can be our best as a community. (Amber, 2017) This was another way for

me to understand that this community values what is considered important from their

higher power, therefore helping themselves be better people.

The second interviewee: Carina Avila

The interviewee answered the first question by stating that their experience with the

community was like an escape to a comfort space. Like the first interviewee, she

emphasized on how the community was welcoming and how their investments were

genuine, not just a way to lure her in. From this answer, I got a sense of a family more

than a community. People mostly find comfort within their family and this interviewee

Question 2:

The interviewee was not able to answer the second question because they informed me

that they had not attended a social gathering yet. They did state though that based on their

first impression on the ministry, they would be willing to attend future social events. This

shows me that the group really focuses on their first impressions because as told by the

interviewee, this affects future interests and attendees.

Observation: This new comer focused much on their first impression and how it affected

their day. As a person who never associated with this certain group of people, they

reacted in a way that the members of this community hoped for. The communitys

common goal they state to be is to help everyone feel that they can be a part of a

community, despite their background and who they are as a person.

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I also attended one of the ministrys social events in order to continue my primary

research. The event was for the holiday of Valentines Day, in which their main focus was

self-love. They put up photo booths with a backdrop saying I love myself because

where individuals can take a portrait shot with a white board in hand, writing what they

loved about themself. One of the members explained that the significance of this self-love

instead of showing their love for their God was to find the reason why their God loves

them. They indicate that it is actually easier to love and respect their God rather than

themselves. It was an exercise to see how they can love themselves, as their God would

have wanted them to. This seemed to be one of those exercises of the community

reminding themselves that while reaching out to others is always important, it is

emotionally healthy to focus on self care and self affirmations of how an individual is so

important to the community. This whole community seems more than just a practice of

religion. Rather a relationship with one another and their higher being that associates with

more than just following rules and orders but also developing an emotional relationship

with their God. There was another table with little bags with every individuals name of

those who attended. Anyone was allowed to write notes of affirmations for that specific

person into their bag. This group explains that the affirmations they give to one another

are in terms of encouragement letters, prayers, letters of concern, and mostly reminders of

why people love them and why they should love themselves. A common agreement

within the community of loving oneself as one member states, because God loves each

and every individual, they are all worthy of being loved and treated with respect.

This Christian ministry revolves around their common moral and religious values.

With my primary research and secondary research to support the primary research, I have
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come to a conclusion that this specific discourse community has a common goal to

serve and support a higher power they believe in, which is their God. They agree

upon the idea and put in the effort to portray the love of God by reaching out to people

to feel welcomed into the community and to experience a personal, spiritual encounter.

These claims made by the community members made me question the values of their

thoughts and priorities in their ministry. After conducting my interviews and thoroughly

conversing with a few members, I have come to a conclusion that this community does

not see their religion as a religion. They see their ministry more as more of a

relationship development with their higher being, their God. While outsiders may see

their practices as following rules and limits, I have come to a better understanding that

because these people claim that their Gods love is the best kind of love, they genuinely

want to portray that love to those who do not know such thing exists. Although there are

still many unanswered questions tied to this discourse community, I have come to a

general understanding of this discourse community and their effort to reaching a common

goal to portray the love of their God to those who are unaware.
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Citations:

Edwards, Jonathan. God glorified in man's dependence. Curiosmith, 2013.

Personal Interviews:

Hernandez, Pamela. Personal interview. 25 Feb. 2017.

Smith, Amber. Personal interview. 25 Feb. 2017

Avila, Carina. Personal interview. 25 Feb. 2017