Cultural Analysis Projectby Margaret Gentzel

IntroductionThe purpose of this report is to provide a cultural analysis of the Calling

California Christians website: CallingCaliforniaChristians.com, by reviewing the website as a cultural artifact from a Christian perspective and analyzing its social comment on religious thought, social values and beliefs; influence on California culture; religious values and messages communicated to the public; and global cultural significance.

I will briefly summarize the story and meaning of Calling California Christians; describe the strengths and weaknesses of Calling California Christians’ worldview; evaluate the multicultural considerations related to the website; offer an overview of the ethical considerations presented by Calling California Christians; and address how faith is conceptualized on the website.

This report focuses on the gospel message of Calling California Christians as it relates to the California cultural environment in publishing, broadcasting and promoting Christian social issues, events, community services, businesses, and ministries. In essence, Calling California Christians seeks to fulfill Schultze’s vision of “a cultural view of communication that emphasizes the human ability to cocreate culture.”1

Story & Meaning

The Calling California Christians website, CallingCaliforniaChristians.com, located at http://callingcaliforniachristians.com/index.html serves as a clearing house and resource center to publish, broadcast and promote information about Christian social issues, events, community services, businesses, and ministries in the Bay Area and Northern, Central and Southern California. "CALLING CALIFORNIA CHRISTIANS is the next step in bringing together Christian works, workers and resources. … Together united in Christ, we will impact this great State into a renewed Golden Era of compassion and healing,”2 states Olga Hermann, Publisher of CallingCaliforniaChristians.com. Currently, the website is viewed by Christians in 1,300 cities, 48 states, and 90 nations.

Olga Hermann, Publisher 3

Spiritual History

Today the Calling California Christians website offers information via interesting YouTube videos, radio podcasts, blogs, and links to business and ministry websites, television stations, and social media. However, it began as a simple calendar of sorts.

“In 2001 The Sacramento International House of Prayer On-Line Network (SIHOP NETWORK) began posting the Sacramento Region's Christian prayers and events calendar online,” notes Olga Hermann, on the Calling California Christians website. “Now to reach the wider church more efficiently, we have evolved into CallingCaliforniaChristians.com. … We are a group of networking California Christian Ministries and Businesses, strong together for Jesus as outlined in God's word, the Bible. ‘Father, Your Kingdom Come, Your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven!’”2

Christian and Non-Christian Publics

Calling California Christians promotes positive community services to both Christians and non-Christians that include multiple statewide resources for pregnancy counseling, adoption, fostering, pro-life, addiction services, food distribution, homelessness, and domestic missions. The website also offers various international missions opportunities in Israel, including its military, India, Pakistan, and Africa.

Missions 4

ISRAEL: FREE ROOM AND BOARD while volunteering on a military base or in a nursing home. Apply for Volunteers For Israel at: www.vfi-usa.org.

ISRAEL: Please pray for the Israel Cry4Life Solemn Assembly. We need volunteers in many areas for these global gatherings in many different languages. We also need volunteers that have some knowledge of Television, Camera, techs, set design and TD and floor directors for the Global Network Partnership. Also no experience necessary. Please Call David Andrade, 626-372-4163

Community Ethic

The ethical philosophy of what drives Calling California Christians is prominently posted on its website: “What Drives Us: Christians have gotten a bad rap by media highlighting a few who've made mistakes. We want everyone to know about the daily selfless Christian works done of kindness, mercy, loyalty, hard work and self-control. America's history proves this through the many hospitals, schools, universities, shelters, recovery programs, thrift stores, food banks, etc. founded by ordinary people with extraordinary measures of God's love. WE INVITE ALL CHRISTIANS with the same vision to join our Network of the California Church.”2

Cultural Norms

The popular culture’s use of smart phones with touch screens to communicate creates a trend of people touching or clicking on pictures and graphics displayed on a computer screen to quickly traverse back and forth. Calling California Christians may lose return viewers to its website due to the lack of navigation between screens with “back” buttons.

Multicultural Influences

Multiplatform digital media such as the Calling California Christians website are used extensively throughout the world and support international missions as well as local and domestic missions. The use of these social media devices supports the Great Commission in the Bible, which commands us to go out into the entire world to make disciples. “18And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19Go therefore[a] and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”7

Social MediaCalling California Christians envisions Smith’s view of communication in its sharing of

information on Christian resources, as an “incarnational strategy, attempting to accommodate thought to language that is accessible to an audience.”7 However, weaknesses exist in its attempt to become accessible to its various publics.

There are currently no links to a Calling California Christians domain for Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or Instagram accounts on its website, or smart phone apps for the iPhone or Android. Social media platforms and smart phone apps are highly popular in today’s culture with youth, young people and adults. Calling California Christians would strengthen its website by signing onto currently popular social media accounts and “owning” the domain name for Calling California Christians before a competitor or foe obtains the nomenclature.

Smart Phone Apps

Smart phone apps for the iPhone and Android are some of the most popular digital tools for adults in current culture, and the Android is one of the most popular smart phone apps for young people and adults. Calling California Christians does not have smart phone apps, which could be created to offer different icons for various interests, content areas and age groups.

Faith6

The Calling California Christians website offers an excellent biblical statement of belief, and all of the marketing tools for the website’s Christian resources, social issues, community services, businesses, and ministries perfectly fit and promote its mission stated by its expansive biblical values.

ConclusionMy research into the callingcaliforniachristians.com website cultural artifact

shows that Calling California Christians is a truly unique organization in California, the United States and the nations. Consequently, I recommend that the organization consider sharing its concept of the CallingCaliforniaChristians.com website with other Christian ministries to expand its vision globally to meet its organizational vision:

“To help Christians use their God-given talents collectively to do the greater works our Lord JESUS CHRIST instructed, for the world to know the ONE who sends us.” 2

Such expansion fulfills Crouch’s concept of a parable of cultural change: “The only way to change culture is to create more of it.”9

End Notes1 Schultze, Q. J. (2000). Communicating for Life: Christian Stewardship in Community and Media. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.2 Hermann, O. (2014). About Us. Retrieved from: http://callingcaliforniachristians.com/about_us_2.html3 Hermann, O. [CallingCAChristians]. (2014, September 17). www.CallingCaliforniaChristians.com [Video file]. Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgRtrD_q6884 Rubin, J. [Volunteers for Israel]. (2010, December 23). Jerry Rubin's 2010 Sar-El Wonderful Volunteer Adventure. [Video file]. Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvE6R75V5uk5 The Holy Bible: New King James Version. (2014). Matthew 28:18-20. Retrieved from: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+28%3A16-20&version=NKJV6 Lockridge, S.M. Revd. [compu102]. (2008, November 13). That's My King: Do You Know Him? [Video file]. Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6wL1IvMuWo7 Smith, J. K. A. (2006). Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.8 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2014). Matthew 24:14. Retrieved from: https://www.bible.com/bible/59/mat.24.esv9 Crouch, A. (2008). Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling. Downer’s Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press.