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Introducing

Dawn Trautman
LutheranLifeCoach.com

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To foster faithful, thoughtful and intentional

leaders in congregations who follow Jesus in
their daily lives.

7 WEBINARS
1.Faith Formation in a Missional Age
2. If Necessary, Use Words
3. Theories of Culture
4. Working Together in Solidarity
5. Inculturating the Gospel
6. Dog Eating Chicken
7. Going Public

Introducing
Dr. Nathan Frambach
Wartburg Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa
WartburgSeminary.edu

Theories of Culture:
A New Agenda for
Theology, Ministry and
Faith Formation

Three (3) Assertions

The Christian gospel and culture(s) cannot be
separated
We (human beings) live within a pluriverse of
cultures
Congregations are one of those cultures
Workshop goal: cultivate an understanding of
culture that will support and serve faithful,
truthful, and effective ministry in a missional
age

Three (3) BIG Realities

1. Culture(s)
2. Context
3. Narrative (story)
The cultural turn from text to context: Scholars of
religion have turned more and more to the
interactions and relationships between religion and
culture, and to do that requires embedding religion in
its contexts. (Religion and Culture, p. xii)
In other words: understanding specific religious
beliefs/practices (e.g. Christianity) entails
descending into detail and engaging specific
cultural context

What is Culture?
Heres a topic: culture. Discuss.
The question is: What is culture? Engage. Begin.
Discuss.
This should be difficult, perhaps even frustrating.
Why? Because the notion of culture is
inherently abstract and nebulous
Check out the Websteresque definition ,
specifically #5

Culture: Not
Generalized
Generalized (decontextualized) attempts to understand
culture are seldom helpful unless youre writing a
textbook
Its an old analogy, but asking someone to describe
their culture is like asking a fish to describe water
(assuming you can find a talking fish)its hard to see
it when you are in it
Culture includes all the things a group does together
Culture is who we are and the world we have created to
live in. It is the predictable patterns of who does what
and habitual strategies for telling the world about the
things held most dear. (Nancy Ammerman, Studying
Congregations, p.15; pp. 78-79)

Culture: Beyond
Dictionary.com
To paraphrase anthropologist Clifford Geertz, any
road to truly understanding a culture runs through
the particular and means descending into detail
Or, Shrek was rightlike ogres and onions,
cultures have layers
Understanding culture begins with the outer layer
observable behavior, customs, rituals, symbols,
language, etc.
Thats why we need to shift our attention to
particular cultural contexts, specifically,
congregations

What about coNteXt?

Heres another topic: context.
Describe your ministry contextthe social
context of the congregation (e.g., neighborhood,
larger community) as well as the congregation
itself. Be specific.
So howd that go? Easier than the earlier
conversations about culture?
Probably sobecause contexts are more specific.
And describing them is more like telling a story.

Congregation as
context
Each congregation sees it self as a community of God,
dedicated to sacred things. Yet congregations are also
social institutionsthey are places where people
interact, working with one another and serving
constituentsthe congregation is analyzed as a unit,
and as a unit interacting with other units in society:
people, organizations, and culturesEven as it is
dedicated to God, your congregation is a human
institution located in history (the date of its founding to
the present), in a specific place in geography (your
community), and in the lives of its members (the
network maps of their lives).
Eiesland & Warner, Studying Congregations, pp. 40
43)

Descend Into Detail

A deliberate, specific focus on context means at
least two (2) things for leadership in ministry:
1. Moving beyond a theology as projectile view
of congregational context and unearthing the
theology that is embedded there
2. In order to do this we need to learn how to
carefully attend to the context without rushing to
impose a theology on it
This demands some tools from the social sciences
(e.g., ethnography, interviews, congregational
timeline)a new skill-set for many of us, but skills
that can be learned

Ethnography, for
example
Its beyond the scope of this workshop to get
into these various approaches
Studying Congregations is an excellent
resource (particularly chapter 7)
Ethnography is a focused, disciplined
attentiveness to a particular context with the
goal of understanding it better
It is a kind of holy listening that pays close
attention to narrative and stories

Narrative & Storied

Living
One more topic for discussion: story
Tell your congregations story
Or tell a story about the congregation where you
serve
Or tell a story about a significant ministry experience
connected to the congregation where you serve
The point is to help us conclude with a focus on
practices that empower faithful, truthful, and
effective ministry

Three (3) Practices of

Story
We want to conclude by proposing some practices of story
that can help us unearth signs of Gods presence and
activity in specific, cultural, congregational contexts
1. Dwelling in Gods Story
2. The practice of story hearinglistening, listening,
listening
3. Story-telling and telling the Story
One way to understand culture is to understand a cultural
context, and one effective approach to understanding a
cultural context is a focus on narrativewhich begins with
the mutual relationship between hearing story and telling
story.

ThoughtsQuestions
Reflections

Dawn
Nate
Trautman
Frambach
Please
type your questions
or comments
into the question box on your screen. Well
try to get to as many of them as we can.

Recording of this
Webinar

www.practicediscipleshi
p.org

NEXT PRACTICE DISCIPLESHIP WEBINAR

Guest: Rozella White
Date: February 17, 2013
Time: 3pm Central Time
Topic: Working Together in
Solidarity:
A Theology in
Accompaniment

NEXT 3RDTUESDAY CONVERSATION

Guest: Dr. Andy Root
Date: February 19, 2013
Time: 1pm Central Time
Topic: Taking Theology to Youth
Ministry

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