Church Observation

On September 6, 2015, I attended a 7:30 a.m. service at Titus Harvest Dome. Before that time there are people who come in early to pray. I did not choose the best seat to observe my church, but it had to do for the time being. As the service began with praise and worship, I noticed that not many people participated in it until the Pastor came onto the stage. R.J. Washington is the founder and Pastor of THD. As a usual practice before the Sermon would begin, we would go around greeting each other, to make each other feel comfortable. Since it was an early morning service it is understandable that many were still tired. There was a variety of genre sets being used to focus on the Sermon. Most of them were written genres, either already written

At this point everyone is attentive and waited to be served, however, when Communion ended I noticed that some people started to leave. I would assume that many would have to go to work, however that may not always be the case. Olson mentioned that in larger religious groups’ “people who want the benefit of a church affiliation without contributing to its mission may be drawn to the more popular denominations in their region” (Brewer 2006). As the service went on I had begun to notice that a lot of people were talking (things not relevant to the Sermon), many of them being children, but it was also some of the adults as well. These people were using electronic genres, which if not used mainly for the Sermon (in this case) become too distracting. Yet electronic genres, such as handheld devices have become a more desirable function of text within THD. Though users may defend its usefulness, it can still deter the reader from its intended use (taking notes or focusing on the Bible) with a slight flicker of the

For example, The September 2015 Prayer Calendar is a written genre handed-out to those willing to have one, yet there is no attempt on THD’s part to assimilate members right there. The calendars are for the church, yet they can be more effective to the public. Since the calendar does not focus on the issues within the church, but the issues outside of it; therefore the surrounding population could view calendar as type of newspaper per se, since issues that are specified in each day of the calendar affect them as well. Although the Prayer Calendar is a form of genre assimilation this method is mostly geared towards THD building rapport with the community. In other words, it is more of a subliminal method of assimilation, which can give one the desire to be assimilated. The Prayer Tab and the Facebook page can be thought of in the same way, yet having differences in format. Olson states that the size of the population inversely affects the flow of membership (360), meaning that the less population the more committed members and more of the population brings in less members. Yet THD’s method of assimilation is to build a relationship with the population through the use of communication