When Holy Spirit meets corporate practice: Discursive tensions in the American 'mega-church'

• In Event: Secular and Sacred: Communication and Organizing in Religious Organizations

Abstract

This paper examines intraorganizational discourse in an American Evangelical mega-church (i.e., 2000+ weekly service attendants and expansive staff). It analyzes tensions between workers’ uses of faith-centered (e.g., individually subjective; mysterious) and secular (e.g., objective; formalized) discourses utilizing interviews, company literature, and observational data from meetings and daily activities. The results of this study contribute to our understanding of the communicative constitution of organizational structure and values. Implications for working in religious organizations are also discussed.

Author

• Lacy McNamee, University of Texas, Austin