AbstractsCommunication

Storytellers Church is a nondenominational Christian church that began weekly services in Macomb, Michigan in January, 2014. Founded by Pastor Bryan Ball and hiswife Brittany, the mission of Storytellers Church is “telling stories of life change so people far from God will hear” (storytellersmi.org). This dissertation is an ethnographic case study rooted in my participation as a volunteer, attendee, and eventually, a leader at Storytellers. I share my experiences with the physical construction of Storytellers, as well as my own church background and the sense-making process my fellow participants and I journeyed through together. I also detail the qualitative analysis I employed to allow my findings to be grounded in the field notes and interviews I gathered over the course of Storytellers’ first year of services. This process led me to three dialectical tensions, which I detail in chapters three, four, and five respectively: authority assertion and surrender, the idealization and realization of stories, and performance and worship. By placing each of these dialectical tensions in conversation with literature regarding Christian authority, narrative theories, and the performance work of Erving Goffman, I offer ways in which new churches can embrace a dialectical approach as a hopeful and generative perspective from which to build their organizations. Three more tensions also surfaced in my evidence, and those are discussed as directions for future research in chapter six: uncertainty and faith, accountability and acceptance, and stability and change. Advisors/Committee Members: Rawlins, William (Advisor).