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Kyle Ki
Writing Seminar
Rhetorical Analysis Paper
Nov 15, 2015
Intimacy in Distress
The Chamsarang Korean Methodist Church is a moderate-sized discourse community
that continuously speaks against the common misunderstood concept that living a comfortable
life automatically means being close with God. It does not mean that a person cannot be intimate
with God when things are going well, but instead implies that a person is brought closer to God
during times of difficulty or discomfort. There are even times when a person will intentionally
assume challenging responsibilities in order to strengthen his faith. Gods affection is most
clearly understood and received when a person is experiencing a time of struggle. This concept is
evidently demonstrated in a few pieces of text written by the members of the Chamsarang
community. The texts vary in genre with one being a sermon, another being a testimony, and the
last being a support letter.
The first text is written by a pastor and is commonly known as a sermon. The pastor
holds a position of authority because it is known that she has knowledge about the Bible that is
not commonly known to everyone. This position of authority allows the pastor to utilize ethos
effectively because her words are trusted. The audience will undoubtedly trust the things she says
because of her background in seminary school. The members of the church look at her with
respect because she is able to portray herself confidently while discussing the contents of the

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Bible. Her sermon reflects her position of authority, but most importantly references the ultimate
source for credibility which is the Bible. To back up the claims she makes in her sermon, she
references a few Bible verses that would need some kind of interpretation to fully understand the
context of the story. To summarize in a short sentence, her sermon was about how fighting the
good fight of faith will lead believers to a loving God who has already paid the price for sin. The
verse she used in this particular sermon was in the book of Song of Songs, chapter 2 verse 4 of
the Bible. Using this verse as a reference, she claims that God is a being that provides for
everyone regardless of the things they may have done. This claim is made to hook the people
seeking comfort and reassurance. She uses pathos in this part of her sermon by speaking about
suffering. She evokes self-pity in the members of the audience that are going through difficult
times. By making the audience vulnerable, she is able to prepare the audience to take in the main
theme of her sermon which is that there is always light amidst the suffering. Her point is that one
has to struggle through suffering in order to protect ones faith. Putting in effort to stay aligned
with God will ultimately lead to a stronger relationship with him. At this point she utilizes a
mixture of pathos and logos to bring together the community. Her logical claim is that the
members of the community are there to support one another, so each person should be utilizing
that. Since she states so obviously that there arent any reasons why people shouldnt use this
support system, the members wont be able to make excuses. She mixes pathos into it by
mentioning sin which should evoke some kind of pity or sadness in all Christians. The
audience is sitting through a sermon because they value the idea of being unconditionally loved
by God. With this value clearly established, the pastor is used as a medium to teach the audience
more about this God and what it really means to be loved by him. In this case, being vulnerable
is the key to being intimate with God and receiving his love. Feelings of distress lead to

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vulnerability because it is a gateway to asking God for help which is why its hard to feel
vulnerable when things are going well in your life.
The next text is a written testimony of a member of the Chamsarang Korean Methodist
Church. In terms of Christianity, a testimony pertains to the moment in life when the author
experienced a moment with God. The text was written with the authors intent of sharing this
experience with his whole life as the background of the story. His ethos is easily established
because he has been a trusted member of the community for many years. Since the author is
trusted and holds the most credibility in this subject, he was able to use ethos to his advantage.
Since the experience was first hand, he was able to clearly organize his testimony in
chronological order, utilizing mostly pathos in his speech. The way the author uses pathos is
subtle meaning that the effect was built up as the testimony progressed. The way he used pathos
is effective because as the story progresses, the audience becomes more and more attached to
him since they begin to see what his life was like. The testimony is separated into five chapters,
each depicting a different milestone in his life. By starting with his childhood and slowly making
his way up to current time, the audience is taken in by all the happy and sad moments in his life.
When the audience finally felt like they knew who he was, he shares his hardest moment and
how God encountered him through it. The audience is very much interested in claims that
support their beliefs in God. By sharing his testimony, the audience is able to support him while
strengthening their belief in God. He doesnt mention God until the end of his testimony, but that
makes the claim more powerful. It was in an instant when he had the realization about what
Christianity was all about. Hearing stories about experiencing a moment where God is so
apparent makes others hopeful that it can also happen to them. He claims that at the most
difficult time of his life, he was able to relate to the stories in the bible and really understand

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what sacrifices God really made for him. Although he didnt directly reference the Bible like in
the previous example, his claims still held weight because it was an experience he claimed
happened and the audience believes him. Since he was explaining events and details only he
could have known about, the audience has no choice but to either believe him or not. Since the
testimony coincides with the audiences interests, of course they would be enthusiastic to listen
to him.
The last piece of text is a support letter written by yet another member of the community.
The author of this text wrote the support letter in order to request help financially and spiritually
from the audience for an upcoming mission. The audience in this case is all the people the author
sent the letters too. A mission is a time period when the missionary, in this case the author, leaves
his home or area of comfort to serve people in a different community and evangelize (this is in
terms of a Christian definition of missions). A support letter is already a commonly known genre
within the Christian community, so its safe to say that this letter follows the general format of
the standard support letter. However, there are two portions to this text, a personalized portion
and a general portion. The typed part of the letter is the general portion that is constant for
everyone, but the hand written part is personalized for a specific person. The general portion
utilizes some pathos, but mostly ethos and logos to explain the details of the mission. He utilizes
ethos by mentioning the head organization of the trip. The mission trip is hosted by a widely
known organization, so the details he presents can be verified by researching the organization.
Since he is requesting money in this letter, the audience might feel more comfortable knowing
exactly where the money they are investing is going, therefore mentioning the sources that give
him credibility is necessary. After referencing the head organization, he continues on to apply
some pathos by writing a rather short testimony and compiling a to-do list. The purpose of the

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testimony is for the audience to get to know the author while the to-do list evokes feelings of
admiration. He uses the to-do list to disclose the tasking activities he will be applying himself to
in order to serve a community. By disclosing this information, the audience is put into a position
where they feel like they should be supporting him or else they would feel guilty. Like in the
previous example, the author references his own experiences to explain that removing oneself
from ones comfort zone is necessary to experience God. In order to advance his relationship
with God, the author is willing to commit to intensive team training and public speaking
regardless of the difficulties it may come with. The pathos doesnt have a strong effect on the
audience because its too short and too many details are left out, but nonetheless it does its
intended job of informing the reader as well as preparing for the next part of the letter. He
finishes the letter by using logos to give the option of supporting one way or another. He is
basically saying that even if you cant support financially, there are alternatives like prayer. This
option is important so as to not discourage any of the audience members. The audiences interest
is to support the author or else they probably wouldnt have received a letter. If the author ended
up guilt tripping the audience members, the relationship between the audience and author would
be damaged which is why a bit of logos is needed to offer options for everyone. This concludes
the general portion of the support letter, but the personalized portion is slightly different than the
general portion. Unlike the general portion, the personalized portion utilizes mostly pathos.
During this portion, the audience becomes more specific meaning that the recipient of the letter
becomes the sole member of the audience. In this case, the sole audience member values the
friendly relationship he shares with the author. The author speaks to this value by writing a
message for this specific member. Through this, the impression is made that the recipient is
special which will most likely allow the author to win this members support. In conclusion, the

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author wanted to share his intention to seek discomfort in order to become closer to God and
gather support from the people he shared it with.
By analyzing the texts within this community, its easy to see how the members utilize
the different methods of persuasion to clearly express their claims about God. Without
effectively utilizing ethos, logos, and pathos the church, like any other community, would be
unable to maintain a united perspective. Although sometimes it may not have been intended, all
of the examples used from this community adequately applied these methods in order to
accomplish the authors intended task. The members of the Chamsarang Church were able to
apply ethos, logos, and pathos at the appropriate times in order to convince the audience that
faith built on trial establishes a stronger relationship with God.

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Works Cited Page

Bang, Kevin. Chamsarang Korean Methodist Church. Hempstead, NY. n.d. Testimony.
Kim, Will. 2014 Chicago Community Summer Missions Project. 30 May, 2014. TS.
Oh, Jennifer. His Banner Over Us is Love. Chamsarang Korean Methodist Church.
Hempstead, NY. n.d. Sermon.