Destiny Butler

Professor Monterrey

ENGL 5-42

15 November 2020

Discourse Community Report Draft

A discourse community consists of a group of individuals that communicate about a

particular topic, issue or a particular field of interest. The faith of Pentecostal Christianity is a

type of discourse community. It falls in category with a discourse community because the shared

goals relate to one particular goal of being evangelists of God, the deliverance of communication

to obtain and give feedback, diversity in genres, specialized languages, mechanisms of

intercommunication, and threshold level of expert members.

The criteria of Christianity being a discourse community by having the goals of spreading

faith, encouraging and inspiring the youth, and taking care of God’s people. According to

Melzer’s article, “​ Understanding Discourse Communities​” it discusses how John Swale's

criteria of discourse community consists of a broad agreement of set public goals. The common

goals lead to the main goal of spreading knowledge about God and having people be the person

that God sees for them with the help of Evangelists. Many of the members are Evangelists,

people who seek others to convert to the good faith of Christianity. For instance, the California

State Fair, invites members of a church to speak to the community about the Christian faith and

try to “save” the person- knowing who God is and converting to the holy lifestyle. Christian

enlightenment consists of understanding our savior and why Christ died on the cross for our sins.

This is expressed through communion in which we ask God to forgive our sins and we nourish

our bodies with grape juice to represent the blood of christ and a cracker or bread to represent the
body of Jesus. Which ties together to the goal of being God’s evangelists of having the theory of

having protection by god because we hold the blood of Christ in us.

In Addition, the mechanisms members use in communication with one another is through

all interpersonal communications. This is a criterion of Swale’s article, many of the

communications are through meetings, group texts , and the backboard. The leadership gets

information through meetings and group text messages. Every month leaders have to attend

mandatory leadership meetings on the 4th Saturday of each month. In the meetings we are

learning about God, asking questions, meeting with the head pastor, and teaching one another. In

which delivering the message of god the leaders spread the knowledge through Facebook live

and due to the pandemic as well as zoom meetings to discuss God’s word.

The participatory mechanisms consist of the physical vocal portions. Such as the church

goers and leaders discussing matters during Sunday School where they are able to chime in and

get feedback and ask questions about the lesson taught. They also can get informed through

Sunday sermons listening to the leaders preach and teach throughout Sunday service. In addition,

the church has announcements during service and any questions or concerns you refer and find it

on the backboard. Every member of a church has a specific duty so communication is

fundamental in running the church because everyone is accountable for themselves.

Christianity has a set of genres, which relates to Swale’s criteria. The bible holds the

highest peak of genre. It consists of scriptures, stories and parables. In order for the Christians to

convert others they have to know the stories behind why things occur. The scriptures tie into life

situations that people have been in or will eventually will. The stories are the examples, you

can’t provide information and assume you know what you are talking about without a testimony

of someone who has run into that encounter. Another is when Pastors or even strong believers of
God do sermons. Sermons are considered a genre, although they are drawn from the Bible to be

used in the Speakers word every Sunday. The parables include stories in them to show the

lessons learned with the use of music including the parables as well.

The specialized lexis group members use in Christianity consist of speaking in tongues.

The use of tongues is a heavenly language that only God and the person who is speaking

understands(Balteara). It tends to come out when a person is speaking and the holy ghost gets in

them and the words become powerful. The community also uses “amen”, “hallelujah” , “God”,

“Evangelists”, “Prophets”, “Minister”, “Pastor”, “Apostle” and “Bishop”. For instance, many

people believe that a Minister and a Pastor are the same people but in reality they are on two

different hierarchies. People believe that amen is used to end a prayer but you can say amen as a

form of agreement or even at the end of your sentences. The specialized lexis goes beyond

depending on the type of Christian. For the Pentecostal Christians we use the specialized lexis

through our prophecies heavily, due to our way of practicing the faith through the holy spirit and

feeding off the energy.According to Pastor Xavier Balteara, “the experts are the leaders that are

chosen that have a calling on their name. The newcomers that join the church we teach them our

ways of how God operates and teach them about why God brought them to the place.We host

newcomer meetings and class to tell them about our belief system and explain what gift and

talents they might have that they can contribute to the church and leadership”. The newcomers

have to have an open mind to what is going on and be devoted to actually learning and obtaining

the knowledge. The purpose is to not stop after them but give them the ability to influence the

upcoming generations, have their children obtain the word because the word isn’t always solely

based on glorifying god but talking about everyday issues. For instance, in church, Pastor Xavier

is a youth and young adult leader he ties in the use of wanting to follow the crowd, underage
drinking and smoking and partying. It’s about talking about things to make the person better or

discuss the unspoken. In the community there isn’t any specific person that speaks more than

others.

The head Pastor of the church doesn’t censor nor prevent anyone from stepping on the

pulpit everyone has a fair shot. Within the group it tends to have some conflicts with people

having different intake of the word. Others might have gotten one message and the other got a

different one. However the conflict arises when the bad spirits are callen out within a person and

is casted out in front of the church, some individuals take it personal.Although its the spirit that

is actually being attacked not the person.

Chrisitianities threshold level of members have their prospective places with knowledge

and expertise in the word. The threshold consists of the Senior Pastor, Associate Pastors, Elder,

Ministers, Deacons, Evangelists, Prophets, First Ladies, Mothers, and the members. The Senior

Pastor assigns rolls to everyone. The associate pastors and Elders are additional pastors to preach

so a variety of different people speak to assist the Senior Pastor. The Deacons help facilitate the

running of the church making sure everything runs smoothly. The Evangelists, Ministers and

Prophets run Sunday school and bible study. The First Ladies attend to help planning events,

helping with the kids and fall in category as a minister since they speak and preach as well. The

members attend and help the conversation continue because they are willing to learn and ask

questions. The members of the community refer to the ones in the bible telling their stories. They

borrow the language from the bible and the stories.

To be a member of a Pentecostal Church and rhetoric discourse community you would

possess the abilities of wanting to be a follower of god, being able to be spiritually woke,

communicate with others, be able to assemble meetings that are discussed through specialized
lexis and through a medium of genres. I see myself becoming an expert member as I do my

calling. Since I am a “First Lady” since my fiance is a Pastor, I have obligated duties to hold in

order to keep the church moving and get involved more in the religious practices. Perhaps start

my religious calling in becoming a Prophetess or even an Evangelist.

 Annotated Bibliography

Balteara, Pastor Xavier, Personal Interview, 1 November 2020.

During this interview the speaker informed me about Christianity as a discourse

community. The intended audience typically are believers of God and to the ones who are

interested in learning about him and wanting to be “saved”. The speaker may be biased

towards certain subjects due to things being done in the “Christian way”. This source

gives both the similarities and differences of the topic because the speaker is one of the

leaders in the discourse community. This source is useful because the speaker goes into

depth about Christianity from the background to where we stand now. In this instance,

this source has weaknesses in the senses of the outer perspective of the discourse

community.

Melzer, Dan. ​Understanding Discourse Communities.

Dan Melzer article defines what an actual discourse community is and briefs how it is

tied together. The intended audience is for those who are wanting to educate themselves

on what a discourse community is and what is considered one. The scholarly article

credibility is present with mentions from experts in the field to support the article. This

article helps in formatting and developing the discourse community. The purpose of this

article is intended to be used for the introduction since it is more of use in the beginning

of the writing.

Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Writing About Writing: A College Reader. By

Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2014. 217-28. Print.

John Swales article defiance what a discourse community involves and what it takes for a

group to be considered one. The article consists of experts in the field that provide

credible information for the topic. This article helped with coming up with the discourse
community verifying that it is one. The purpose of this article is intended to be used for

the introduction to help guide and format the paper.