Our First Messy Church

Pauline Sanderson - St. Peter & St. Paul, West Mersea - 12 November 2009

Our first Messy Church was held on 8th September. We were thrilled with the number of families who came - including the helpers there were 78 of us - plus two tiny babies!! We have to have the crafts and meal in the same hall, so while the Worship is going on in Church, the helpers are scrambling to clear crafts and set tables.

We are going to make a few changes for next month but will basically follow the same format. The children unfortunately did not sit with parents in church and we found it very difficult to have control over them. Our theme next month is The Prodigal Son and I would really appreciate any ideas for getting and keeping their attention. The age range is from about 1 - 12. Has anyone any experience of using Godly Play to this sort of number and age range? All ideas and suggestions gratefully received.

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Storage space?

Pauline Sanderson - 26 August 2009

A query to the website from Pauline Sanderson. If you've got any more thoughts to add below, do contact us

The question: Hi. We are starting Messy Church but will have limited space. Does anyone have any ideas about ways to store the children's crafts during the time we are having our service in church (we cannot leave them on tables in hall as these will be needed for the meal). Many thanks

The answer: Without knowing the details of the set-up, would it be possible to leave one table aside for putting all the crafts on? Or spreading a vinyl cloth or something out on the floor and putting them all in a corner? We use windowsills for ours, and parents' handbags / baby bags are very useful for instant stowing away. Or of course they could all go in a lobby or foyer or similar to be picked up on the way out if you have such a space. A washing line strung up or a clothes horse could be a place to peg up pictures to dry.

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Keeping a register?

Anonymous - 14 April 2009

Is it sensible to keep a register of people attending Messy Church or not?

The answer:

In some senses, as we don't keep a register for Church attendance on a Sunday for 'ordinary' Church, so why should we for a Messy Church or other group meeting? From a legal point of view or a child-protection point of view, we don't need to as the children are accompanied - if in doubt on this please consult your Child Protection officer for your Diocese (or equivalents if not in the Church of England!)

That having been said, it might be useful in terms of noticing who hasn't been for a while and having all of the contact details in one place...so it depends if your families would find it intrusive or would accept it happily.

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numbers for catering

Jo - Meltham, W Yorks - 27 November 2008

We're planning to have a one-off (trial run?) messy church for Christmas. Just wondering how we decide what number to cater for - whether we should try to get people to 'book' to come. What do other people do?

Lucy answers:

Thanks for your query about numbers for cooking. The incredibly unhelpful answer is, 'Who knows?' You can probably get a base number by checking with church families whether they're planning on coming and how many friends they're bringing, then add your team and a large or small number of unexpected guests, depending on how good your community relations are. But lots of Messy Churches are surprised by getting more people than they expected, while others are disappointed with fewer than they'd hoped. Over a few months, you do build up an idea of how many to expect, but it takes a while. Some MCs do ask for pre-booking, but others line someone up to do a Tesco run at the last minute if needed, and get ready to slice the sausages thinly. I should just take a deep breath, stock the freezer and pray.

Hope it goes really well!

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Help to Plan a session

Sue Avery - Cholsey - 19 October 2008

Sue Avery's Messy Church-to-be is trying to break down the jobs that need to be done to allow volunteers to be very specific. Here's the working document (PDF) she has devised and sent to the Messy Church website in the hope that it might be helpful to others.

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Jesus as Light of the World

Mary Savage - Romsey, Hants - 10 September 2008

We are holding a Messy Church style event on Sat 25 Oct with the theme Light up the World and are looking for craft/activities to celebrate this theme esp for boys poss using light circuits etc, also using Operation Christmas Child as a way of being light in the world!! So ideas welcome please All Saints Ch, Awbridge near Romsey

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Involving the Sunday congregation

Lucy Moore - Portsmouth, UK - 04 December 2007

The other question we've been chewing over at our planning meeting is how to involve the Sunday congregations more in MC, both as helpers and to make it clear that this is an opportunity for them to invite neighbours and friends along and enjoy coming as a member themselves.

We've come up with a form for helpers (which you can see here as a pdf or as a Word document, if you wanted to adapt it yourself), which is going in the October magazine and which we'll hand out as a letter into people's hands in Sunday church.

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