First Messy Church

Sheila Wintringham - Heald Green - 27 June 2010

At St Catherine's Heald Green we held our first Messy Church in March - Messy Easter- and 70 people shared the meal. We held our second Messy Church - Messy Summer -two weeks ago and 90 people shared the meal so we felt blessed that we had grown in numbers.

We are now planning Messy Harvest for the end of September and hope that we shall see even more people on that occassion. We have received so many positive comments from the families that came, many of them never having been to church before . We will post news of our next Messy Church in October.

Pam Hill and Sheila WIntringham

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L19 Messy Church Update

Jane Leadbetter - Liverpool - 21 April 2010

Just to tell you about L19: Messy Church last Saturday. I thought we would finally have lower numbers because it was still school holidays and school flyers went out weeks before so everyone must have forgotten about it. But we still had 120 turn up on the sunniest of days. But it all felt less stressful somehow. We took note, when planning, on comments from the questionnaire which we gave out at the previous MC. So we prepared 4 different types of sandwiches with crisps on the tables then vanilla ice cream and asked the team to each bring a bag of small sweets for toppers. The cooking team were very pleased and enjoyed themselves so much more than when preparing hot food for who knows how many and when we needed more sandwiches at the end (they went like hot cakes!) it only took a few minutes. It was good to see smiles in the kitchen instead of sweat and tears. This would work again with soup added maybe. We’ll do ice cream again next month.

We also tried doing something outside - mud sculpting - where a whole city was created and a castle! Also we tried a caterpillar trail and that was v successful, with families enjoying exploring outdoors. This meant the hall was less crowded and the leaders at the tables could actually chat to all-ages instead of pointing out a free space available at their table! The take away sheets are working really well too and we always run out and never find any left behind.
When I emailed the team to get any feedback I was overwhelmed with the positive comments and especially sensed how much the whole team had enjoyed this particular MC.

I know the good weather can’t always be booked and that we can’t always produce just sandwiches but it certainly all helped towards the team’s good feeling.

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Doug Horley at Hanham Methodist Church

Doug Horley - Hanham Methodist Church - 12 April 2010

At Hanham Methodist Church the Messy Church uses Doug Horley's DVDs and music for worship. It’s very energetic and also very worshipful and all the families seem to like joining in. We planned last week on Good Friday to book Doug Horley to come to Bristol to put on a Praise Party. The aim of the evening was to refresh everyone and also present the gospel.

Doug did this really well. Doug prayed the prayer for people to join in. After doing this he asked if any one who had prayed the prayer would go for a brief chat with him and his helpers at the front of the church. I believe 14 went forward and received a book and had a chat.

The next day another church that runs a Messy Church on Saturday morning said that a child who had been at the Doug Horley event gave a testimony in the worship that they had invited Jesus into their life the night before... O thank you Jesus!!

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New Messy Church

Eileen Ray - Sandringham, Victoria, Australia - 07 April 2010

It took me a while to realise that what we have been doing is a variation of messy church, so it seems appropriate to apply to be listed as another Messy Church on your web site.

Our Messy Church services came about because a family who wanted their children baptised asked if we could hold worship on Sunday afternoons because they couldn't come in the mornings.

We started last year with a winter celebration, then spring, then Advent, summer (including a blessing of the backpacks, as it was the beginning of the school year) and now our next one will be on 23 May, at 5 pm, a harvest festival. At the Harvest Festival we will bring foods we have grown and after giving thanks (and some other activities not yet worked out) we will share a meal and have communion.

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First Messy Church

Sheila Wintringham Pam Hill - Heald Green Cheadle Cheshire - 10 March 2010

St Catherine's Heald Green are holding their first Messy Church on March 21st in the afternoon. Our theme is Messy Easter and we ask for prayers for the success of our firat venture into Messy Church. We are very encouraged by the number of helpers who have offered to join us and so far we have 29 children on our list but are praying for more to share in this afternoon. Will post news of our afternoon after the event.

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.Messy Church Abingdon begins

Beryl - Abingdon Oxon - 18 February 2010

As we met for our last planning meeting before the first Messy Church, we were wavering between 'Noone will turn up' and 'what if there are so many people we can't cope?'.

Saturday 6th February arrived and a fantastic team of around 30 began to setup for the morning. Furniture shifters, craft leaders, worship leaders, cooks, washers-up and welcomers busied themselves in preparation for the moment of truth.
10.30 Doors opened and a couple of families arrived, followed by more and more and more... by 11 o' clock, 30 adults and 50 children were engaged in lots of creative activities loosely connected to our theme of love. After an hour of messy fun, we all moved into our worship area for some lively songs and a local variation of The Good Samaritan, where the man on the Abingdon Road, on his way to Jericho (part of Oxford), was cared for by a passing hoodie. A prayer activity followed and we all enjoyed hot dogs and icecream for lunch.

Everyone seemed to have enjoyed the time together and was keen to come back.

We are grateful for all who have encouraged this step of faith, prayed for us and helped to make it happen. Please pray for those who came that they will be blessed as families, grow in their knowledge of God and come back next time, and for the team as we plan to share the message of Easter.

Messy Church is a joint venture between Peachcroft Christian Centre and All Saints Methodist Church.

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Messy Church at Cholsey School

Sue Avery - Cholsey, Oxfordshire - 26 January 2010

We held our first Messy Church at school yesterday. What a phenomenal success! The only failure we had was that we were too frantically busy to take many photos. I have 4 and they're only of the finished product! There is a lot to learn if you want to do Messy Church at school, and I also take on board your comments Lucy, in the blog 13.1.10. Let me explain.

Our messy church was for years 3 and 4. That's the 7-9 year olds. Therefore we had a sum total of 44 children and no parents. We had sent out an earlier invitation to all the children and their parents in case any wanted or needed to opt out for any reason.

You do need to turn Messy Church into a military operation in terms of planning and so on. We had 7 activities, thinking that 6 children per table was an acceptable number. Our theme was Epiphany and our activities were star biscuits, crowns, potpourri (a simpler alternative to myrrh and frankincense), junk camels, marbling (for gift wrapping paper), a large collage of Giotto's Adoration of the magi and candle decorating. I had collected all our craft stuff from our church hall previously and had laboriously put everything in individual boxes to reduce the 'where's the glue?' type questions. Though it never works out quite as well as you hope.

Our time slot was just after lunch. We had a time plan, however, if the children come in late to eat, they therefore leave late and your setting up time is severely reduced. Hence we were not quite as ready as we would normally have been.

The children came into the hall and sat in the middle. I asked them if they'd heard of Messy Church and what it was. They had a vague idea that it was to do with crafts, so I explained rather briefly what it was. I explained our theme was 'Epiphany' and did any of them know what it was. Not surprisingly they didn't. So again that was explained. We all got stuck into our activities and we finished a little earlier than planned. It's quite amazing how fast children can get through the activities. You need to have activities that take different amounts of time. There are some children more able than others. We had a blind child who was rather limited with which activities she could do, apparently the potpourri was the best thing she'd done in ages. Watch out if you do food activities for any one with allergies.

The children settled down for our 'come together' time and I asked if they'd had fun. I was almost deafened by their response. I asked them what they'd done, if they could remember the theme and what it meant. Then we went into the songs and they astounded me with their brilliant singing of 'We Three Kings'. Our vicar told the story in his usual dramatic way! Then we had another song and then prayers from our curate. She has a great way with prayers. Every time, she explains that praying means talking to Jesus and God, and that, when we say amen, that means we agree. Simple but it works and the children are beginning to remember. We finished with the grace and then cake time and bedlam! We handed out take home sheets with colouring in pages, puzzles galore, the story, what we'd done, a prayer, a thank you and the dates for the next Messy Church. Something for the children and parents.

What we very quickly realised is how much help the parents give. Although invited, only two parents were there and that was because they worked at the school. You have to remember that this happened on a Wednesday afternoon when most people are working or looking after smaller children and with hideous snowy conditions, so it's fair enough, but hopefully they appreciated being invited.
We also found out that any individual theological conversations were impossible. You need to keep the story extremely short. They enjoy singing but you need to have a very interactive story with pictures (I think our pictures fell off the computer!) to keep their attention, and never ever mention that they might have cakes until it's time.

I ended the worship section by saying thank you to the children for having us and one boy replied thank you for coming. Individual conversations during cake eating time showed that the children seemed very encouraged by the ideas of Messy Church and if they come to our next one then we'll know how well we've done. Messy Church to me is sowing the seeds of faith, the introduction of the Jesus to youngsters in a way that is fun and interesting and exciting to them. So yes I agree that Messy Church must never become a franchise or a club, but that is down to the leaders to ensure their Messy Church doesn't lose direction. Our church aim is for Jesus to be known. This is the best way I know for children to get to know Jesus.

We did leave with good feedback and the reception teacher asking if we could do Messy Church for her children! Not just yet!

Excerpts from thank you letters from the children in Year 3 and 4 at Cholsey Primary School:

'Thank you for all the fun and activities. I really enjoyed doing it and I hope you come again because all the kids enjoyed it. Hope your year is happy and jolly.'

'I enjoyed doing the cooking and the rest of the activities even if my camel’s hump kept falling off.'

'My best part was the gold, frankincense and myrrh and I gave it to my Granny so the room will smell extremely lovely and nice.'

In Braille we had 'I am writing to say thank you for bringing the smelly stuff.'

'Thank you, thank you and another thank you.'

'It was lollo and 5 star and double thumbs up.'

'I love messy church. I wish I could go to messy church every day.'

'Thank you for bringing messy church to Cholsey School. All messy churches are cool and fun. I really enjoyed it.'

'It was the best day of my life. Hope you will come again.'

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Happy Christmas from L19 in Liverpol

Jane Leadbetter - Liverpool - 14 December 2009

A very happy Christmas from all at L19 - The Messy Church in Liverpool!

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News from Boston

Jo Young - Boston, United States - 30 November 2009

I was just thinking about you as we're putting together our next event on December 13th.

Our church is really celebrating Advent this year, and we're having an Advent Messy Church celebration. It's really turning into a massive event and I'm moving somewhere between fear and excitement as I work with the staff to pull it all together.

We're collecting small basic items (toothpaste, new socks, small shampoo, mittens etc) and we're going to be decorating bags and all working together as a church to pack the bags and distribute them to local homeless shelters and group. Very excited.

This is really the biggest Christmas event we've ever done and it's going to be amazing. We're having our first kids pageant and a music group down from Maine to perform some beautiful music for us. And then FOOD in our cafe. Yay! Lots of people are bringing friends along and I truly believe that it's going to be amazing!

Anyway, I just want to let you know we're still holding the Messy Church torch! We are still using the concept for special events at this time, but God is SO present in what we do and it's been a great Evangelistic tool. I finally registered us!

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Messy Church in Yate, Gloucestershire

Alison Thurlow - Yate, Gloucestershire - 16 November 2009

Hello Lucy!

I have been meaning to contact you ever since Lee Abbey to say that it was lovely to meet you and thank you for all your encouragement regarding starting Messy Church in Yate - I also picked up several useful ideas and tips!

We had our first Messy Church on Saturday which was actually a taster session for the folk in the church before we open our doors to Joe Public in January. Numbers were a little lower than hoped for - it was a dreadful stormy evening and some of the older members just couldn't make it - but we still had 34 and an excellent time was had by all! This 34 included 2 dads who never normally come to church and they were amongst the most enthusiastic participants!

The format worked really well with everything flowing well from one section to the next and all joining in enthusiastically with the 4 sections: welcome and games, craft, celebration and meal. There was a huge sense of anticipation and excitement which was great.

One of the very exciting things - also a massive answer to prayer - is the excellent team of people from St. Nicholas who have signed up for Messy Church. The team work was exemplary with some people doing things they had never done before - I have got great hopes and dreams for some of these people and can see promising signs of growth already.

The ages of the team members ranged from 12 to 60 plus - from my point of view a very positive thing as the whole concept of all age church is something that has always been very close to my heart.

From the outset I wanted to encourage craft table 'leaders' to try to link their craft into the story and also engage people in conversation, if they felt happy doing that. As we had many people totally new to this kind of thing, I wrote a suggested one line introduction to their craft eg 'Later on we're going to hear a story about a young man called Joseph, and he was a young man who had many dreams' leading into the 'Dream Picture' craft. I also gave them one suggested question to ask people, if they felt happy doing this eg 'Have you got any dreams about what you would like to do in the future?'

I tried to match the 'level' of each quetion with the experience and confidence of the person leading that craft. I was afraid this might be too autocratic, but it actually worked well as it seemed to give people confidence, and even our least confident/experieneced person was very happy to ask people what their favourite sanwiches were and was surprised how many good conversations she had with people. It is an idea I plan to develop and use again in the future.

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