Religious congregation social entrepreneurship in sacred church buildings

The primary function of sacred church buildings is to host the rituals of religious worship, and they are ingrained with values that respect, proclaim, and perpetuate religious beliefs. While some religions restrict the use of their sacred buildings to worship, the Church of England sanctions activities that benefit the community, and more recently, generate income. Using interviews, participant observation and secondary data from congregations responsible for twelve sacred church buildings, this paper investigates religious congregation social entrepreneurship. A care framing of religious congregation social entrepreneurship is theorized on the dimensions of faith and care about welfare, community, environment, and for the sacred church building. Three contributions follow from the research: the concept of religious congregation social entrepreneurship is developed, prior research on social entrepreneurship ethics is extended, specifically care ethics, and the novel concept of sacred-entrepreneurial hybridity is proposed.