General support and troubleshooting for Messy Church.
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Hi everyone,
We are wanting to introduce 'explanation cards' to accompany each craft/art activity at Messy Church. We want to show how each activity relates to the Bible passage and also a brief explanation on how to do the actual craft.
How much text should you try and include? Does anybody have a template that works well?
What has worked best with your families?
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We're thinking about the Messy Church idea and would love to be in contact with someone whose church is either close by (Trafalgar, Victoria, Australia) or similar (just the one building- no hall, older congregation with a few families at worship and more we've met through holiday programs. We're in mission mode really!)
How how often are you meeting? The once a month sugested in the book did not seem very regular. How do you manage different levels of inquiry in the teaching time- or just aim at children with a few bits for adults? Which songs have you found to be popular?
Love to hear helpful lessons learned!
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Is there a recipe book that would be useful for messy church?
ANSWER:
Have a look at Messy Cooks - http://www.brfonline.org.uk/9780857460691/
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Has anyone done a risk assessment template for Messy Church? Questions have been asked!!
Our church is currently looking for knitting patterns, plain or pre-decorated to help us make puppets for our 2011 nativity play. The sunday school would like to help in the knitting but I'm really struggling to find a pattern for full hand size puppets. If anyone knows where we can get some that would be amazing, I'll let you know how it all turns out.
Our next Messy is titled Journeys - however we are a little short on ideas for activities for this. can anyone help?
Also the following will be on Harvest so there must also be some really good ideas out ther for this.
Thanking you for any assistance
Steve
We are planning our next' Messy' as Jonah. Does any one have any craft ideas for the slightly older boys who are now coming with their younger brothers and sisters. We have been running nearly 2 years and it is immense fun to see the church full of noise and Mess!!
Reply from Jane Leadbetter:
What challenges the slightly older boys give us! My Messy Church has been transformed by the addition of an idea which came from Nancy Rowe and her Messy Church in Ontario Canada. 'Minute to Win It!' is a very popular TV game show in the USA, Canada and Australia. How many times can an activity be achieved in one minute? Get a stop watch or egg timer and watch the queues and competition build up! Older boys (and girls!) can't resist and there are lots of ideas, some with a fish theme on http://www.nbc.com/minute-to-win-it/how-to/ We have introduced this each month with messy maltesers as the prize for who can achieve the most times during the craft hour.
Jane Leadbetter L19: Mesy Church Liverpool
Has anyone got a 'Messy Church theme song'?
We've been running messy curch for quite some while now, and we wanted to try using a 'theme song' that they would all recognise to draw them from their craft activities into the 'worship' time. We are looking for something that has actions, is very cathchy, can be used each time, but is not too bouncy, that will distract from the story/demo etc that will come next. Our jumping and lively stuff will come later....(we think!) We are just going to try something slightly different.
Any suggestions for a theme song would be great. Thanks Christchurch Baptist Church Messy Church Team!
From Gary Hoare:
We use Creativity by Stephen Fischbacher.
See Fishy Music or iTunes or Amazon for more information.
We are looking at starting a messy church soon and we are toying with the idea of doing it on a Saturday morning with breakfast - has anyone else tried this time of day and found it works.....or not!
We're finding it quite tricky to choose songs that work well at messy church with our group of mostly preschool age children, especially as it's hard to build up a repertoire when we only meet every two months. What songs would people recommend?
From Jane Leadbetter:
A favourite with all ages but particularly with the youngest ages at L19: Messy Church is 'I like God' from the CD Great Big God for preschoolers (Vineyard Music). It gets faster & faster! Also look at Sticky Kids and you can take any popular tune and write your own words to fit your theme: London's Burning, Amarillo, Twinkle twinkle little star, Match of the Day! Also don't worry about leading with actions when you can make bottle shakers as a messy craft and get them out each month!
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