Morgan Robertson November 17, 2013 English 1101-025 Discourse Community Ethnography Moving in the Right Direction The

discourse community I decided to observe was CBF (Campus Bible Fellowship). I am an insider to this group, and have been involved since the second week of school. CBF meets every Wednesday from 7pm to 9pm. This meeting starts off with dinner and is followed by announcements, games/skits, prayer requests and a message. We meet in the Student Union in room 340 B and C. We usually have around fifty to sixty people each week, which makes us one of the largest student organizations on campus. In this ethnography I am going to be convincing outsiders of the value of Campus Bible Fellowship. My Topic of Inquiry question I am going to try and figure out is: How does everyone keep their composure and act like nothing is ever wrong with them? I observed this group on Wednesday October 30th and Wednesday November 6th for two hours each. From observing this group I have learned that I have another family to go to while I am away at school. CBF is very unordinary because how many others group feed their students each week? Everyone is so close and friendly and gets along which I feel like is very unusual for society today. During my observation on Wednesday October 30th we had a costume party. We met in the Lucas Room in the Cone Center. We had music and a short message and then played games.

We had finger foods like chicken nuggets, popcorn and churros. People came dressed as fisherman, pirates, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, and many more. No one every sits in the same spot. We also move tables and try and meet new people, since we are like a family. We have been doing a study on Heaven. One week Jeff said something that was very interesting and I have never thought about it. There is not going to be marriage in Heaven. The only marriage there will be is God and his bride, the Church. This got me thinking about the things we have now that will be different in Heaven. Campus Bible Fellowship offers many ways to get involved. Saturday November 2nd they went out and visited shut-ins and then went to a corn maze. We also have game nights, concerts every Saturday, bike trips, retreats and Christmas parties. The officers try and have something every other weekend because if students do not go home they want them to feel at home and have something to do. It is also a good break from the stress of school work and end of semester finals. I am thankful I have found my home away from home. While observing Campus Bible Fellowship I took notes on how people act, talk and present themselves. When you walk in the doors it is such a loving atmosphere. There is always someone waiting at the door to greet you and ask how you are. It makes you feel welcomed and loved. When I first started coming to CBF (January 2011), I had this fear of people judging me. I literally talked to only Cori Owens, Kim, and Jeff. So I had to overcome and realize that CBF is a very welcoming place and that I am accepted. In the fall I decided I was going to connect with CBFers and now I thank God that I did that because some of my closet friends are in CBF (Ashley). When observing the conversations, the main thing people talked about were how you are, how your week has been, I will be praying for you and is there anything I can do. It is a genuinely uplifting atmosphere. For example one of the officers came up to me and said How

are you? How has your week been? I hope you have a good rest of the week. This made me feel loved and like someone actually cared. I was very stressed out that day but after she talked to me I felt better. Everyone in the group says they always look forward to Wednesday because it gets you away from stress and into encouragement. In most student organizations the officers may come across stuck-up because they are in control and have the power. However, in Campus Bible Fellowship if the officers did not talk you would not be able to figure out who the officers were because they come across the same as everyone else. Jeff Abernathy is the one who gives the messages. He is from a church called Northside Baptist which is not far from the campus. He and his wife Kim, are very involved in Campus Bible Fellowship from Wednesday nights to events on the weekends. They open up their house for game nights. They both are very welcoming and treat you like their own kids. They are the parent figures so it really makes you feel like you are a big family. My mentor is Kim Abernathy! I dont think any other person at CBF has made me feel more loved then her. She is honest, trustworthy, and hilarious! She NEVER wanted to go to Africa for mission work and God accepted that challenge and sent her and Jeff there and she fully accepted that. I love that, I love that she lets God control her life. I complain a lot about school and she just laughs at us at the beginning and I love that. She never softens things, she keeps it real (Ashley). Being a part of this organization is very important because without it I would go through the week with no break from school work and would also be down in the dumps with the amount of school work I have to get down. I would also not be living how I am supposed to. I would be lost. I will be doing a lot of sinful things and not well with my faith. I would not be in my relationship with my boyfriend, I would be a lot more grumpy, and I would probably be doing things that right now I would be ashamed to even speak of (Ashley). I am grateful I found this organization because they are very similar to my church

at home. They believe in going out and serving others which is very important to me. Even on Wednesdays, members going around asking if there is anything they can do for you. Something that small is important and brightens their day. Campus Bible Fellowship plays a major role on campus because we are able to reach out and help others. Most people in the world see a dark place that is going in the wrong direction. However, the members of Campus Bible Fellowship try and be light in the world and believe we can make a difference in someones life by smiling or asking how they are. In todays society the norm seems to be partying, drinking and not going to church. More and more people fall into this trap once they get into college because they do not have their parents there watching them and telling them what to do and not do. When I asked Ashley if she ever felt like society was pulling her away from church and CBF, this was her response: Absolutely! I literally had NO ONE when I first started going to CBF. All of my friends would ask me to go to dinner or do something on Wednesday nights and it was extremely tough for me to continue to go to CBF. The typical college lifestyle does not involve continuing your faith, and be different. Now, there is nothing to keep me away from a CBF meeting. If someone asks me to do something on Wednesday night, I ask them to come to CBF instead. The artifact I used was my Bible. I chose this because at CBF this is what we read, study and have our lessons on. As Jeff says It is our guide and manual on how to live our life. It is significant to CBF because without it we would not be able to follow the messages, learn verses, stories and know how to treat others. To use this artifact you need some literacies. Some versions are harder to read because they are Old English. The newer versions are used more in this day and time because they are less wordy and easier to understand. The three most important things this artifact tells me about my subculture are values, how to live and how to treat people. These

are the most important because the Bible says this many of times throughout the Bible. Just like a teacher repeats things over and over because they are important, the Bible does the same thing. Without my Bible I would not have any values or know how to act. Reading the Bible and applying it to our lives helps the members of CBF keep their composure and act like nothing is wrong. They have the joy of the Lord and they know nothing can bring them down or hurt them. So they live each day one at a time and get the things done that need to be done. You do not have joy until you have God in your live (Jeff).

Works Cited Johnson, Ashley. Personal Interview. 9 November 2013