Share a theme for your own Messy Session or suggest ways to improve on existing ones.
We've just planned our Autumn term themes and wanted to tell some of the stories of Jesus...
Choosing to Listen- the wise and foolish builders
Choosing to Grow- the sower and his seeds
Choosing to say sorry- the prodigal son
Choosing to Follow- the wise men seek Jesus
Let you know how it goes...
We have had so many requests for the recipes that our fabulous cook Janet produces each Messy Church that we are going to produce a MC recipe book to celebrate our first birthday in September. Watch this space and I'll try and post it here so others can make use of it too!
Have any Messy church 'congregations' been to Spring Harvest as a group?
If so, how did you / they organise it and what happened?
Linda Scott asks...
We hope to run our first Messy Church on 15th July. We would like to know how other groups have organised First Aid provision. Is it sufficient to have a nominated person with a First Aid certificate? Is that nominated person involved in any other responsibilities during the day?
Lucy answers...
from my own point of view, what you suggest sounds ideal, and I wouldn't worry about having that person involved in an activity like everyone else - I don't think we've done more than stick a plaster on a finger in 8 years of Messy Church so thye might get a bit bored with just waiting for accidents!
Every blessing with your plans
Lucy
We’ve had our Easter Messy Church at my new pad and had a bit of fun I thought I’d share. Kevin, the Rector here, and I got to thinking that we’d like to teach our wee’uns the Creed, but decided against it when it got complicated. So instead, we wrote our own. Thought you might like it...and pass it on if you do.
We believe in God the Father,
Maker of the universe, the earth, and me.
We believe in Jesus his Son,
Who came to set us free.
We believe in the Holy Spirit,
A gift from God above;
Who came to live inside of us,
To show us truth and love.
AMEN.
Irene Kennedy wrote us a blow-by-blow account of her experience of leading Messy Church:
Because there are increasing numbers of people who find attending Sunday morning service difficult (children's sports fixtures, having to work and so on), we have tried to provide a mid-week service designed for parents and children, though anyone is most welcome to come along.
There is an additional need, that of getting a child into the local church school. If parents need to 'get in on church attendance', our local school has just set that qualification as 'at least twice a month, for two years', impossible if you have to work on a Sunday morning.
We have tried various formats and times but it is difficult to find a time which suits parents at the same time as enabling folk who are working to be part of the team. At one point there was just my husband, the vicar and me, and that fell apart when I had to spend increasing amounts of time out of town looking after my ancient parents, so the family service lapsed.
In response to requests from parents we had a meeting in the local pub and sorted out a basic team, a format for the service and a time: straight after school on Tuesdays, every week except for the Tuesday after Christmas and in August, using a Messy Church format and starting in two weeks. The first of the new services was last Tuesday.
2pm Tuesday
D and I go across to church to set up tables and chairs. Although we had asked at PCC for helpers, none have come forward, so it's just the two of us and since I refuse to move the desperately heavy, unstackable chairs, it's down to the vicar, as usual. I go up to the office to photocopy colouring/puzzle sheets. I'll have to err on the side of caution since we have no idea how many will/will not come.
2.20pm
I put out craft materials, puzzle sheets etc., hymn sheets on chairs, music ready for our keyboard player, service outline and talk outline on the altar ready for the service part of the session.
2.30pm
A lovely lady, M, arrives (she was at the meeting) to organise the kitchen, drinks and biscuits for early arrivals. The local schools from whom we expect to get most of our children all finish at different times, so we have decided to serve drinks and a biscuit as they arrive to help cope with this.
D goes across the road to ASDA to buy drinks, including sugar-free for the diabetic lad we know will be there.
2.45pm
R, our keyboard player, arrives and gets set up in her corner.
I get all the crayons and pens in church and throw out the duds, sharpen the pencil crayons and get them on to the tables ready for use.
We label the drink bottles and biscuit tin 'Messy Church', so we don't use up the supplies for Sundays.
2.50pm
I go through the box of pictures to colour, which is used during Sunday services, throw out those which have been drawn on, save some which will be great for future Messy services and put the rest back into the box for Sunday.
3pm
I plug in the slow cooker, with water and a bowl of chocolate pieces to melt ready to make chocolate crispies. Our theme is 'taste and see that the Lord is good', so we're making something good to taste.
3.10pm
Our first arrivals. Drinks and biscuits.
Things start to hot up. One little lad decides he will leap up on to the soft baby play mat, which has been safely stored on top of the chairs at the back of the church (it's part of the play group's equipment) and I make sure he comes down! No other child tries to do this.
Children enjoy drinks, biscuits and go off to choose an activity.
3.30pm
The chocolate has melted, so the first children rush up to make their crispies.
3.40pm
We are in full swing. J is collecting names, so we can keep a check on who's there (essential if they need to prove church attendance), D is chatting, parents are chatting, although we would really prefer them to be 'doing' crafty things with their children. I see we have three childminders with their charges, great! Children are getting the idea that they can do one activity and then go to another. We make extra crispies for those who don't want to make one.
3.45pm
K and P have prepared a more substantial snack: sausages and cheesy tortillas, and children are diverted from crafts to the snack table, and back again.
It looks like it's all going rather well.
4.10pm
The crispies being finished, I tidy away the equipment and put the trays of goodies on the altar, away from little fingers.
Looking around I can see some children have done as much as they want.
4.20pm
I get out the bells and start to ring up at the altar. People stop, so I ring and beckon and they all get the message and come up to the altar. We have enough chairs set in a semi-circle in the sanctuary for the mums, and so the children sit on the carpet. They are very squashed (we had a really big turnout and are delighted to have this problem), therefore for next week we'll need to move the altar back.
4.30pm
Our service is underway and we enjoy a talk about biscuits (trust the Name! Taste and see) and play our (noisy) percussion, have an action song and then we quiet down for prayers... and they do all quiet down, in spite of their bouncing around with excitement when the vicar promises them more biscuits from his special packet as they go home!
We finish with two quiet songs, 'May God's blessing surround you
each day' and what I know as 'The Tweenies' going home song'.
4.50pm
Almost everyone has gone; J is giving away the last of the crispies; D is chatting to a mum and I am finally getting to know the lass who lives at the bottom of the vicarage garden in the old rectory.
5pm
I stagger home leaving 'someone else' to finish the tidying up, incredibly tired and heartily glad that I have left baked potatoes in the oven.
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Another great Messy Church here in Swansea yesterday. 39 children; a record for us!
Best wishes,
Danny
Could you use a discount on craft materials? We have arranged with Baker Ross for Messy Churches to receive 10% discount on their purchases and for Messy Church/BRF to receive 5% commission.
1) Set up an account with Baker Ross as 'Messy Church St Freda's, Pontefract' (insert your own location).
2) When you place your order quote promo ref BRF10. A great way of buying quality materials and supporting BRF's Messy Ministry at the same time.
We had a ton of fun for Mardi Gras at St. Timothy's in Fairfield CT. THe kids ran a traditional Shrove Tuesday pancake relay race. We used frozen pancakes and ran a team relay race outside, flipping pancakes ina frying pan and handing off to the next teammate!
Inside, we created mini Mardi Gras floats out of shoeboxes. We covered shoe boxes with colored paper and decorated them New Orleans style with beads, feathers, plastic gold coins, gems and stickers. We also decorated Mardi Gras Masks. Once we were done creating, we had a parade with floats and masks around the parish hall, to the tunes of New Orleans Jazz music of course.
Then time for our pancake supper. The Men's group cooked pancakes and sausages ofr us. To really get messy, our dessert was chocolate fondue (fruit, pretzels and marshmallows for dipping!). We always close with a causal communion, with pita bread and grape juice. This time, as a devotional, we discussed the meaning of lent, looking inward, and sacrfice, sharing what we might give up for lent.
It was a fun Messy Church!!
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