Back at St Michael's College again today, following the students' reading week, with a lunchtime Tutor team meeting, then an afternoon spent meeting with individual students to find out how each of them are doing before the group met for the hour before supper.
In the group we prayed using texts from a Greek Orthodox lay person's daily prayer book, which was a little out of the ordinary, even if we only used the English from the bi-lingual sheet. We then had quite an interesting discussion about the variety in pastoral values and priorities in church fundraising, mission and maintenance.
It struck me listening to the conversation that within and across denominations church communities embrace a diversity of economic characteristics, in the way they plan (or don't plan), raise funds and disburse them. It may relate both to a given context and the tradition of social teaching which has been derived and applied from the interpretation of the Gospel. There are plenty of books about Christian stewardship around, but I| confess that I don't know of many writings that study ecclesiology in the light of economic practice.
Perhaps this reflects just how out of touch I am with contemporary theology.
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