The Background to Messy Church

The first Messy Church began in 2004 when a group at St Wilfrid's in Cowplain near Portsmouth were frustrated because, as a church, we were hardly reaching any children with God's story.

We had lovely buildings and facilities but we weren't using them enough. We had wonderful creative people in the church, and the area we lived in needed as much community-building as possible, being a rather featureless suburb.

There was a lot of sympathy towards church in general but the church wasn't offering anything that really gripped the imagination of local families.

We decided very early on to try to do something for all ages together, partly out of a belief that we grow best as a church when we walk the journey with as many different people as possible, and partly from a desire to help families grow together in their walk of faith, not see Christianity as something you grow out of when you're eleven.

The rest is history... a messy present... and an unknown future that you may well be part of too!

Messy Church is a core ministry of BRF, which provides the staff and infrastructure to enable it to grow and develop, not just throughout the UK but in at least 12 countries as well.