Vad fikar de efter? En studie i hur kyrkfikat påverkar upplevelsen av gemenskap i Svenska kyrkan

Abstract

In most churches in Church of Sweden there is fika after the Sunday service. The word fika is part of the Swedish culture. It is a gathering that gives people a break and a common fika includes coffee, tea and a cookie or cake. I will use the Swedish world kyrkfika when I’m describing the practice. Kyrkfika signify fika after worship service. The aim of this study is to explore ministers’ perception of the relationship between kyrkfika in the Church after Sunday service and the perception of community in the congregation. To answer the question a qualitative semi-structured interview study was conducted with four different ministers employed in two different congregations of the Church of Sweden that offers kyrkfika inside the church building. The interview material was analyzed through two methods. The first was open coding with the titles “worship community,” “theology and ecclesiology” and “the church as a holy building.” The second was axial coding where kyrkfika was the causal condition. The titles in the open coding came from the theories that I used. The study result is that kyrkfika has an influence on the perception of the community in relation to the ministers. The ministers have an aim to make the congregation more of a whole congregation instead of many worshipers. My conclusion is that kyrkfika is important and when it is served inside of the holy building the congregation seems to make the church their second home.