This is a study on the attitudes towards voluntarism and non-profit work, as expressed by employees in the Church of Sweden's children and youth activities. The study has had a mixed methods design, reflecting in the fact that the study at large is two-part, a quantitative part and a qualitative part that complement each other's results. The quantitative part had access to an empirical survey from the project “Av fri vilja på fritid 2021”, run by the Church of Sweden's unit for research and analysis, while the qualitative material is based on two focus group interviews, conducted in two different parishes in Skara diocese.   The purpose of the study has been to, among employees, find indicators of attitudes towards voluntarism and non-profit work in the Church of Sweden's children and youth activities and to examine differences in attitudes within the parishes. The study is based on the theoretical concept of lived ecclesiology to identify the expressions that relates to attitudes towards voluntarism, as well as the perspectives ‘Church as community’ and ‘Church as service provider’ to shed light on the differences between parishes.   Conclusively, the quantitative analyses show an overall picture of employees' attitudes towards voluntarism and non-profit work. The reduction of variables through factor analyses gave four indicators for attitudes towards voluntarism could be identified: cooperation, competition, complement and tradition. The qualitative analyses illustrated the different attitudes found among employees from two different parishes, via the perspectives of Church as community and Church as service provider. The first is characterized by unpretentious activities where everyone is welcome as they are, the employees try to ensure that the non-profit work is meaningful and that the volunteers, based on their own will and experience, take an active part in both planning, teaching and community. The latter is characterized by primarily being a place to learn about God and Jesus, a place that is something more than a "regular after-school centre", and where the employees plan and carry out any activities to maintain a high level of education while the volunteer are given simpler tasks to help and support the employee. In addition, the study shows how important the organizational choices are for how parishes work with voluntarism; by providing the volunteer with trust and development, they will take greater responsibilities and become an important part of the parish's activities.

In times of social distancing and restrictions, ecclesiological challenges arise for the church as a room that under normal circumstances gather people for services. When the church cannot be used the way it is intended to, it raises questions about the functions of the room. The new corona virus pandemic is a crisis that challenges our perception of the church buildings’ functions and aspects. This thesis is a case study that took place in the Cathedral of Stockholm, also called Storkyrkan, during Holy week and Easter. The purpose of this thesis is to study what ecclesiological implications this new reality has on how co-workers and visitors make use of the room. Through observation of the room and interviews of visitors and co-workers I identify five aspects of Storkyrkan that characterize what functions a church building can have during a crisis. The study finds that through the circumstantial changes of the usage of the room, the materiality of it is amplified. It also shows that many types of people visit and use the room in various ways. They are all connected as a collective in a network through the words, artifacts, music, and practises that are a part of this space. Instead of closing due to the pandemic, Storkyrkan was an open room which generated possibilities for people to use it. In times of social distancing, when people are encouraged to stay away from each other, the church brought people together, though in a much smaller number. This happened both in the physical room and in the virtual room online. These are all sources of lived ecclesiology, which is understood through people’s lives and actions.