A sweet all-age service introduction

Helen Pilgrim - 06 February 2012

Helen Pilgrim emailed the Messy Church Team with an all age service that she introduced through a short sketch.

She writes:

'The way I did it was to have 6 people in a line with their backs to the audience holding their sweets or chocolates and they turned round and held them up at the relevant part of the sketch. I used children for the children's sweets and adults for the adult one's. With part 3 (the celebrations) the person took a sweet they liked a lot and then one they didn't like. Anyway hopefully it makes sense when you read it.'

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Marks Gospel - any creative ideas needed!

Julia Pope - Melbourne -Australia - 06 September 2011

Our church is starting Messy Church next year and we would like to focus on the book of Mark for our creative crafts and celebration. Has anyone else used Mark's gospel previously and has some good ideas. Would love to hear from you. Or if you have some good ideas in relation to Marks gospel. Thank you so much and look forward to hearing from you soon.

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Another idea from Deal

Heather - Sunny Deal by the sea - 14 August 2011

We took the 'fruits of the spirit' cocktail idea which I think we found in Messy Church 1.
For each of our fruit juices, we re-labeled them with one of the fruits of the spirit. We limited the children to 3 'fruits' per cocktail, so that made them choose carefully! to slow the activity down somewhat ( the food crafts usually end up being very quick as the children are desperate to eat/drink) we then gave each child a 'recipe card' pre-printed with
A splash of...........
A drop of.............
A glug of............

they then had to make a name for their drink, add the umberella and cherries etc..

It was a really good way to find out what the children thought were the most important fruits....love came in 1st, with kindness close second...patience was last!!

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Wire Word Craft

Lucy Moore - 20 July 2011

Nancy Rowe who runs a Messy Church in Georgetown, Canada, has discovered a lovely craft for turning wire and beads into words - a great craft for adults too.

Visit Crafts on a Whim - http://craftsonawhim.com/node/52

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Wise and Foolish builders

Amanda England - Yeovil, Somerset - 23 June 2011

Relating to your post back in May. We used this theme for our Messy Church in May. We have mainly preschool and infant age children so our activities have to be quick and easy to do.
We painted pebbles, made junk model towers and castle, printed with Lego bricks, did sticky pictures matching animals and their 'houses'.

Played giant Jenga and built with Duplo.

We had sand play and made sandcastle pictures using sand and PVA glue.

So many ideas..... great theme. Have fun :)

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memory verse idea and YUMMY!

Heather - Sunny Deal by the sea - 08 May 2011

As an activity for our Noah themed service, we made memory verse bracelets out of strawberry laces. We found different sweeties with holes in the middle eg: polos, jelly rings.
We chose the sentance 'God always keeps his word' ( paraphrased from Genesis for ease) for each word a different sweet, threaded onto the lace. each letter = 1 sweet ( God = 3 polos always = 6 jelly rings etc..)

The bracelets then tied on to the child, as they recited the verse.

I got the idea from the beautiful bracelets in the Christian book shop (footprints, Lord's prayer ) The children all had fun, and they ALL remembered the verse. We also used the word 'RAINBOW' as an acronym to describe God..the kids thought of words and wrote them in ...Reliable- Awesome - Immaculate etc...wonderful time!!!

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Messy Friday

Lesley Hardy - Barham, Canterbury - 22 April 2011

We've just had the most amazing experience! We decided to hold a Messy Friday Easter event for families who never get to hear the whole Easter story. We started at 9:30 with hot cross buns and drinks, and making palm leaves. We then processed up to our worship area while singing "Sing Hosanna!" Then came the story of the Last Supper, ending with Jesus going out to pray in Gethsemane. So everyone went off to do some prayer activities - making a footprint prayer; making a prayer bracelet, and making thank you prayers with playdoh. After that, all back together for the Good Friday bit, where we spoke about the cross being a sign of forgiveness and healing. Everyone held a stone while we sang along with a DVD - Jesus Christ, once again. After that, the stones were left at the cross and exchanged for a heart shape, and they all did activities involving crosses. We came back together again and acted out Easter Sunday, then celebrated the resurrection by singing. This was followed by activites around the resurrection - finger painitng, decorating a large cross with flowers for Sunday, and making an Easter garden. Finally, all together again for another song, a prayer and the Messy Grace. Everyone had a great time, and all were engaged. We're just praising God for all the families who came! We had over 80 in a very small country village. Fantastic!

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Marie's boys stuff

Marie Beale - 09 November 2010

Marie Beale has put together some suggestions for boys who want activites rather than crafts.

Marie writes:

Marie uses a room upstairs for activities rather than crafts. Boys enjoy scavenger hunts, sports challenges and conker tournaments.

Construction sets are a must, also any food crafts, rocket/helicopter making and science stuff.

Computer animation programmes.

Hard boiled egg drops

Designing T shirts or pillow cases

Balloon modelling

Smelly Church!

• Download her slides.

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Bap-tingle

Jane Carter - Sileby, Leicestershire - 16 September 2010

Bap-tingle

At a Baptism within a Messy Church service I adapted the Christingle for baptism. Everyone made one of these.
I gave everyone an apple which in some cultures symbolises Life. Then we put a blue ribbon around the apple symolising water.

On four cocktail sticks we had 4 things which are important in baptism. Everyone put there name on a sticker and stuck it on the cocktail stick. I said how important our names are etc....

Then I had foam faces stuck on another stick which represented the promises made by parents, godparents and the church.

On another stick we put a jelly baby on it representing the child brought for baptism.

On the last stick we put a love heart sweet which represents love, which is what baptism is about.

In the centre then everyone placed a candle and we lit the candles praying that the child to be baptised and all present would know of the Light of Christ.

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Blessing Boxes

The Reb. Canon Dr. Duke Vipperman - Toronto Ontario Canada - 12 September 2010

You could add this to the two ideas on the Beatitudes already at the Messy Church site.

We wanted to put something in the kids empty hands. So we developed the idea of a "Blessing Box." We used white Bride's favour boxes often placed at the table setting of guests at a Wedding reception. With careful shopping we got the price down to about $.35 CDN per box. They are easy enough for most kids to assemble themselves.

Then the box was filled with symbols of each beatitude. Riffing off the reworded Beatitudes found elsewhere on this Messy Church site, we gave the kids these ideas:

1. Good on you who feel empty,
God's home is open to you.

Just as your hands are empty before God,
the box begins empty - but you can decorate it inside and out to your pleasure

2. Good on you who feel sad,
God will comfort you.

They drew a frown on a comforter (a piece of cloth) - upside down, of course, a frown is a smile.

3. Good on you who trust God,
God will help you.

a cross - we used a cross shaped stencil to allow the children to scribble with crayons or coloured pencils across the opening. Surprisingly easy delightful artistic.

4. Good on you who hope for better,
God will satisfy you.

a glass for water (small disposable plastic communion cups many "non-conformist" churches use)

5. Good on you who are kind,
God will be kind to you.

something that is one of a "kind"

6. Good on you who want to please God,
God will smile on you.

a heart or a smile

7. Good on you who make peace,
God will embrace you.

a peace sign or a chanelle strip (pipe cleaner) hug - just a u shaped bend, really

Good on you who get in trouble
doing what’s right,
God's home is open to you.

Finally the box is full of trouble!

(so only six easy crafts plus the box itself)

Finally. we gave them pre-printed versions of the Beatitudes - both a standard translation and the Messy translation to put in the box. They were home with the kids with the idea that parents and children could remember the beatitudes by them - but also would challenge the families to live them.

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