1st Messy Church in Chard

Maureen Coath - Chard, Somerset - 13 November 2009

Just to let you know we held our first Messy Church in Chard on 22nd October run by Chard Churches Together. We opened our doors at 3.30 in trepidation but were soon delighted as families started to arrive, many of them 'non-church' people.

We started we board games and a drink for everybody to settle in and then spent about an hour on crafts. There was a great buzz in the hall and everybody seemed to enjoy themselves.

We had a short 15 minute service in church on the theme 'What a Wonderful World' and then all sat down to a pasta supper. Many parents commenting how much they appreciated not having to go home and cook tea.

[...]

Read in full

Celebration / 1st birthday Messy Church

Deborah Watts - Sapcote Methodist church Leicestershire - 12 November 2009

We have just celebrated our first year of Messy Church, so we thought we would have a celebration for Easter and our first birthday, so we began by making a cake in church with the children’s help.

Our minister Barbara encouraged the children to hold all the ingredients and add them to the mixer at the right time (I was a bit worried about the two young lads who were looking after the eggs!). As we mixed the ingredients together, Barbara told a story of how in Messy Church we are all needed to make it work, with our different talents. Everyone, from one-year-olds to grandparents are needed – if we didn’t all come and take part then it wouldn’t happen.

Barbara said that to God we are all needed, and just as the cake needs all the right ingredients to come out correctly (if you took out the sugar it wouldn’t work) so we need lots of different people in Messy Church.

[...]

Read in full

Hanham Messy Church in School

Gary Hoare - 12 November 2009

By the way we are trying a different way of doing Messy Church..

We are doing a weekly version in a school every week during term time at Air Balloon Primary School...some parents stay and join in and even help us.
The format is that we meet on a Wednesday afternoon
3.30pm the children have a drink and a biscuit...then they make things on a theme..e.g.e Noah's ark making animals to go in the ark..
4pm we have 15 minutes of worship...when we sing tell the story and have a prayer..
the children are all gone by 4.15pm...it's quite quick...but we found that in our area the families weren’t coming to us so we go where they are...and we have the school facilities e.g. heating lighting etc...and we have found that the head is very supportive....
This is being run by Summerhill Methodist Church and St Aidan's parish church St George's Bristol....we are doing this together with the Hanham church Messy Church.

Read in full

More goings on in Cholsley...

Sue Avery - 12 November 2009

Hi Lucy,
I thought you might like to hear how our Messy church is going.................

Cholsey's second messy church date clashed with half term but we still had an amazing fifty plus turn up! Our theme was "Love your neighbour" told through the story of "The good Samaritan" or if you follow our vicar's dramatisation - "The good Asylum seeker".

Activity wise we did a huge collage version of Van Gogh's good Samaritan painting. Ours has a certain "Messy" charm to it. Great fun! The kids were pointing out which bit they had done. Great ownership. The picture is now on display at the Laurence Hall for everyone to see. Hopefully that will be a bit of advertising as well.
We also did "rocky road cakes". Not sure if putting a chocoholic in charge of something chocolaty was such a grand idea but the children made loads and ate loads.We decided to have a table for colouring in pictures for the youngest children.
Friendship bracelets were a big hit with the older kids (adults) as well as the younger ones!! and charity boxes completed our activities for this session. My 3 year old son finished his before we had even opened the doors!

The "come together" part was great fun, possibly more fun for those coerced into the dramatic profession!! probably because we couldn't stop laughing, BUT the message did get across. One Mum told me at Little Fishes (a mother and toddler group I help out with) that her little girl had really understood and taken it in and remembered it. Perhaps I shouldn't say this - but how many of you remember the sermon 3 days later? The singing was loud and obviously enjoyed by all. Hopefully the illustrated lyrics shown on the screen added a bit of fun especially for those too young to read.

I hope Messy Church is working. It certainly seems to be based on numbers and more importantly feedback. One child told his Mum that Messy Church was the best thing he had ever been to at the Laurence Hall(Church Road, Cholsey). Hopefully through the enjoyment and the fun, God's message will come across. It is most definitely a different way of doing things and apparently a most enjoyable way. I do hope that you will come and experience it for yourselves, and if you are an adult, why not bring a child along with you.

Read in full

Messy Church Pictures

Alison Tudgy - 12 November 2009

Below you’ll find some photos of Alison Tudgey’s Messy Church in action…

Read in full

News from Encompass, Wootton, Bedford

Ivy Peacock - 12 November 2009

Thanks for the latest newsletter. It is great to hear how Messy Church is developing.

Encompass is now well into its second year and we find that parents are inviting other parents and our numbers keep rising. The kitchen team do a magnificent job in catering as they never know how many to cater for yet never let us down.

We have difficulty in that we have to change the ethos in the hall as we move from each stage, but we have found that centering everything around tables has worked for us. When families arrive activity things are set out on 8 tables and covered with a cloth whilst everyone has a welcome drink and biscuit. Activity leaders remove the cloth at about 4.00pm and we find that people soon settle to different craft activities, (we try to have an outside activity when weather is fine). When a cross appears on the screen, those leading an activity clear away materials into their crate, place a cross and candles on their table. In this way we move into a short celebration. We finish with the Messy Grace and the cross and candles are put away, tablecloth and cutlery put on tables. Food is brought to each table.

We do wonder what we do when numbers are too great for our hall but we look forward to that challenge!!

Read in full

L:19: Messy Market

Ian and Jane Leadbetter - 12 November 2009

Hey Lucy & Bjarne

Attached photo of our latest L19: Messy Church venture to Garston Market at half term hols. Had a brilliant & v busy day. Gave out 200 flyers about our next L19:Messy Church, which was last Saturday, and we had 180 all ages turning up again, in the church hall, with lots of new faces and we cooked
216 sausages! Bjarne, can you spot the balloons we used at the market?
Thanks for leaving us your danish balloons. They are very handy to have for these markets. How is Messy Church going in Denmark? L19 folk keep on asking me!

Love
Jane Leadbetter in Liverpool

Read in full

News from Messy Church Tuckswood, Norwich

Lucy Moore - 12 November 2009

Hi Lucy

just in case you are wondering how our first messy church went...
Well, we enjoyed it, the few children we got really enjoyed it, but it was very small. Just 3 children, one is my 10 year old, and the other 2 are grandchildren of a church member, who were visiting from Newcastle! They liked ti so much they wrote us a thankyou letter!

Our problem is contacts, as our team members have grown past the 'meeting other mums at the school gate' stage. Also as we meet on a Sunday afternoon (time that suits the team best, and doesn't clash with local afterschool clubs), motivating parents to come out is an issue. So we have been pondering this and come to the conclusion that we should encourage grandparents to bring children and enjoy some family time, and still give parents their quiet sunday afternoon! Also we have a Tamil Church group that meets in our church building on Sunday afternoons, and they have asked if their children can come! So that is a big positive! I think we'll be v flexible about them bringing adults as their parents are in the building anyway!

So, that's us so far. It was discouraging at first to have so few, but things are looking positive for our 2nd M church, on the 22nd November.

Hope everything is going well for you.

Love
Jenny

Read in full

Messy Church New Zealand

Debbie Smith - New Zealand - 12 November 2009

Hi Lucy,

It was good to hear from you. I’m keen to stay in touch (if we may) as Messy Church seems to be pretty new here in NZ. Most of the ones that I have come across (just a couple here in Christchurch) are calling it something different, like ‘Families at 4’.

We have to date run 4 (it seems like much more). We do it at 6 weekly intervals and said we would review things in January. We have decided to stay with 6 weeks as it is quite a bit of planning and organizing. This is partly due to the fact that I enjoy creativity and love developing ideas and possibilities.

We call ourselves ‘Messy Church’. I love the title. It seems to grab folk’s attention and includes all ages, single parents without excluding anyone. We meet at 4 on a Sunday afternoon. The reason I think that Messy Church is attracting interest here in NZ is on account of the fact that churches have struggled to see how they might build a bridge from Mainly Music into the life of the church. Certainly our Messy Church is attracting good numbers from Mainly Music. We do posters and flyers and ask folk to bring something. We think that this enables them to opt in and fires the imagination.

Examples: ‘I am the light of the world’ – bring a torch
‘I am the good shepherd’ – bring a woolly hat and a bag of chocolate covered raisins.
‘Jesus stills the storm’ – bring a raincoat
‘I am the way’, Journeys – free ticket on arrival. These were stamped as folk arrived and again to re-enter the hall after their journey and then for the remainder of the session.

We run things differently from your book. That’s just the way it has developed. The book though is invaluable for ideas and to keep me/us on track. We tend to meet in the hall, although the last one that we did, ‘I am the way’ we did a journey through the hall, lounge and church, with various places for folk to stop and think. They had a map to follow and we did a treasure hunt, with sweets by the cross for the children to find. The message of the cross being the real treasure to be discovered. The font became a waterfall with ducks and drinks for refreshment. We made and decorated angels and had a prayer tree. You know the kind of thing. We explored journeys in general, how we can get lost, lots of confusing signs, different modes of transport and told a story of a little girl who got lost in a museum. They had an OS map to consider where they were on their journey and large Lego bricks, a suitcase, and a dustbin to travel lightly and let go of excess stuff we tend to carry. Folk said this was the best one we had done. The feedback from them all has been very positive.

The one before that was filmed we explored, ‘Jesus stills the storm’ with a real boat in the middle of church and tarpaulin for effect with thunder and rain. We made windmills and floating boats and did blow painting. The children loved the boat. (I have attached some of the photographs to give you an idea). We had over 75 photographs for this session.

The format we tend to use is:

• Introduction to the theme (with PowerPoint etc). The photographs from the previous session are up on the screen as a rolling display. We have done face painting relating to the theme and have jigsaws and games for folk to play with as they arrive.


• Immediately followed by crafts (this acts as an icebreaker) we have found that it helps folk to mix around, chat and relax.


• We then have a bag with various cards (4 songs, a story with visual effects applicable to children and adults, a prayer, a reading (one or two sentences) a special song (sometimes) and a you tube clip if that fits the theme. It depends on what card is picked out of the bag as to what we do next. Having said that for the ‘I am the way’ theme we had a set order as that was what we thought would work best and it did for that occasion.


• Birthdays.


• Grace (sung)


• Tea (finger food, bring something to share). This has worked incredibly well, though the kitchen folk always do hot sausages. We have found that finger food allows people to continue to mix and chat. They then leave when they are ready.


• A DVD for the children to watch as they eat their tea and to allow the adults to chat. We did do ‘Holy” DVD’s, but have moved away from anything too much like Sunday school. Wallace and Grommet was a real hit.

We have an ‘official’ photographer. This ‘ministry’ emerged quite unexpectedly. We have complied albums and many of the families are ordering photographs of their children as the pictures are so good. We provide these on a donation only basis. Between MC Sessions I have photos displayed for all the church to see what we are doing and for prayer support. Certainly having regular church members on board has proved to be essential in what that communicates. The challenge as always is for them to mix and chat with those they don’t know.

Overall I lead, though have gathered 3 others around me as The Ideas Team. They are great at generating possibilities and sounding things out are a wonderful support and encouragement.

• A Craft Team is developing which we hope will be up and running in January.


• A Kitchen Team.


• A Welcome Team.


• A Worship Team.


• A person developing our parish Webpage to include MC.


• A Photographer.


• A Set up Team.


• A DVD & Sound Team.

I have found your suggestions in MC2 very helpful most importantly our aim and how to keep discipleship and relationships active in between our MC meetings.

We have an Ideas Team meeting this week for MC Christmas. I then intend to gather everyone involved for a social before Christmas. Here I want to do some input about MC and what we are aiming to do, structure etc
I hope that this will keep us focused away from merely numbers and get folk on board with the vision and using their gifts.

Hope this gives you a flavour. Thanks for your support, do keep in touch. We are most encouraged. I’ll do what I can to give you a copy of the DVD. I haven’t seen it myself as yet.

Every blessing in your ministry
Debbie

Read in full

Messy Church arrives in Carbis Bay

Sue Doggett - 12 November 2009

When we were on holiday in Carbis Bay (St. Ives) last week, we were delighted to discover that the local parish church is running Messy Church. They launched their first event at Pentecost and it was so successful that they are planning to run MC every month! This is a church that typically has a congregation of approximately 70 people on a Sunday morning and claims to have no children! The families who came were local residents, rather than holiday makers, which was very encouraging.

Visit their website and click on Messy Church.

www.carbisbayandlelantchurches.co.uk

Read in full