Messy Church... with beer?

Lucy Moore - 29 September 2009

Sue Avery’s Messy Church has made a virtue out of necessity when a double-booking threatened two valuable events.

I thought you might like a little update on how we’re getting on at Cholsey in South Oxfordshire. Throughout all the messy churches you’ve been too I’m not sure if you’ve managed to combine messy church with a beer festival! Let me tell you, it’s a very good idea and not just for the obvious, although I’m told it tasted very good!
We had a clash of bookings at our hall and rather than upset either the Beer Fest bods or Messy Churchers, we decided to join forces and run both events at the same time. Well, why not? I’m not sure if the thought of beer afterwards made Messy Church more appealing, but we had a staggering eighty plus attend. Our norm is around 50.

The Beer Festival was in support of a Cholsey grown charity called CHOKO in which the Cholsey community (CHO) helps a South African community, Kodumela (KO) to help themselves. World Vision agreed to help set up this pilot project, linking our two communities together under the organisation’s management.
Our activities were centred round an African theme including African masks, instruments, junk animals, bead work and string printing to represent the beautifully bold and colourful African fabrics. We had messy church regulars, new comers and beer festival people coming to see what we were up to. The great thing was seeing the children’s happy smiling faces. It will be very interesting next month to see if we get new people coming.
During our worship section, we showed video footage of the Kodumela children singing “We are marching in the light of God” both in the Dhosa language and English. One kind Beer Fest person has now videoed us attempting to sing “Siyahamba” – the Swahili version, and then a better effort (I hope) in English. This film will hopefully be shown to the children at the next trip to Kodumela. CHOKO is not just about fundraising but about showing the community of Kodumela that people in another part of the world are concerned and care enough about them and have achieved this through linking schools and churches together and many, many other projects.

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First Messy Church - a success!

Anne Le Bas - Seal, Sevenoaks, UK - 28 September 2009

We didn't know if anyone would come to our first Messy Church, which replaced the under-fives session we had had before. This previous initiative hadn't ever built up a big enough group to be viable - lots of families came sporadically, but the vagaries of life with small children meant that some months there were just one or two.

So we decided to go all age, tying sessions in to festival times - we have planned to meet just before Harvest, Advent, Candlemas/Lent, on Good Friday and before Pentecost. That way we can prepare things which can be used in the Sunday morning service to encourage families to come along to that as well.

But in the event we had about 17 children (they didn't stay still long enough to count reliably), plus their accompanying adults, at our first Messy Church session in the Church Hall yesterday. We were preparing for Harvest Festival (next Sunday - Oct 4), which is also the feast day of St Francis, so we made a banner with St Francis preaching to the birds - the birds are species previously unknown to ornithologists, but fantastically colourful and feathery . We also made sunflower pew ends, to adorn the church for Harvest, and bird feeders to take home, made out of old plastic milk bottles... I hope the avian population of Seal appreciate our labours. You might think that this would have appealed mainly to the younger children, but it was the teens and nearly teens who couldn't be dragged away from the cutting and sticking for the final round-up act of worship. This included (of course) a spirited rendition of Old Macdonald (can't think why that wasn't included in Hymns Ancient and Modern) during which we discovered that Old Macdonald had diversified - as farmers must these days - and was now keeping dinosaurs, as well as the usual cow, sheep, pig etc. I suggested to the small boy who insisted on including the dinosaur that it might eat the other animals. "Perhaps it is a herbivorous dinosaur - one that only eats plants?" I asked. "No, its a T.Rex!" he retorted. Why am I not surprised...

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News from Macclesfield

Ruth Mock - Macclesfield - 30 August 2009

The home church consists of 20 old ladies and had few links with the huge estate in the parish, so the team saw Messy Church as a way of reaching families. It runs weekly, as it's not a diary-based culture, and for food serves tea and toast. The celebration is very very short and the congregation tolerates only the same two songs each time. Parents are often quite dysfunctional - yelling across the room at their child or trying to bring eight children to a ratio of one adult, while the many children with ADHD are at boiling point by the end of a school day: it can be quite hairy.

The home church raises questions: 'Aren't they just coming and taking from us?' 'Are they moving on at all?' 'We don't see people coming to faith.' The only sign of spiritual growth Ruth can see clearly is that now, two years on, people in the Messy congregation are offering to help; two years ago they would never have dreamed of helping.

Ground rules are very important and they have to employ management strategies like the yellow card. One person has sadly had to be banned for repeated unacceptable behaviour. A new mum arrived and was appalled at the noise and at a 'horrible child going round swearing at people' - when an outsider suddenly gives their view like this, the team sees it's time to make changes.

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News from L19

Jane Leadbetter - Liverpool - 29 August 2009

On the Friday of half-term holidays six of us took L19: Messy Church to Garston village market and with the sun shining and boxes of free have-a-go crafts like planting sunflower seeds in decorated pots, and decorating glass night light holders, we enjoyed the best five hours of outreach ever!

We gave out invites to our L19: Messy Neighbours and engaged with all ages (we got a spot right outside Lloyds Bank!) in creative and conversational ways. The best last-minute idea I slung in my bag early that morning - modelling balloons & pump! All I did was make a balloon puppy dog and show Robbie & Joshua how to do it and next thing we had a constant queue of men and mums asking for them.

One gentleman came back to us half an hour after and gave us ten pounds saying 'it's great what you're doing' and that paid for the stall!

Some of the market families came to L19: Messy Neighbours the following week and afterwards I had a lovely phone call from a lady who explained that she is a single mum with a twelve-year-old girl. They find it hard to find things that they can do together out of office & school times. They loved Messy Church and can't wait for the next one! She came from a few miles away and her sister-in-law had passed her a leaflet from Messy Market!

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News from St Saviour's, Brookwood

Jo Birkby - 28 August 2009

Tomorrow will be our 9th Messy Church and it's been a real thrill to see people so excited about coming each month - mostly families who've never had a church connection before.

We've so far seen 200 different faces, with 80 people coming regularly. Before Messy Church we had just a handful of children coming to our church (and they were all the children of the leaders!)

We've recently taken Messy Church out into the local community at two school fairs and we will be holding a Messy Church Cafe on the forecourt of the church to kick off our Centenary celebrations in July. It's been a busy time but we're loving it!

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KMC Leadership Team Member

Peter Shears - Kingswood Methodist Church Bristol - 06 June 2009

Our first Messy Church at Kingswood Methodist Church in Bristol was brilliant.

For a start, the 21st March was a beautiful day, far better than the postponed date of 7th February. The leadership team of 5 was supplemented by a number of eager and, as it turned out, hardworking and talented volunteers. As the clock ticked round to the start time of 11am, a number of us were very nervously looking out of the window wondering how many, if any, people would turn up. Perhaps we should have had more faith because people started arriving promptly and continued to arrive for the next half hour until we had 50 or so people present.

As people arrived they were greeted by Chris Knight who took their details so that they could be informed about the next one. Then they either joined in with the normal coffee morning downstairs or started on the activities upstairs. Helen Slocombe and her team provided a number of activities based on the story of Joseph. These included making beards, putting together a picture of Joseph in his coloured coat and word searches. After 45 minutes everyone came together to share what he or she had done in a short period of worship. Then it was downstairs for more sharing, this time sausages, beans & chips. And more worry too. One of the ovens was not working properly and the food took far longer to prepare than we had intended or wanted: far too long we thought. But maybe this turned out to be a blessing in disguise as no one seemed to be in a hurry and everyone was happy just to sit and chat. So much so that they continued to sit and chat long after they had finished eating: instead of a finishing time of 12:30 it was 1:30 before the last people left.

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Messy Market

Lucy Moore - 01 June 2009

Jane Leadbetter and L:19 Messy Church in Liverpool have taken Messy Church out into the highways and byways, telling it in the marketplace - literally:

Yesterday was fantastic at local Garston Market (small weekly affair) with great weather, folk and responses to Messy Church. Will do this again in the summer. Crafts chosen were mosaic glass tumblers, sowing sunflower seeds in decorated yog pots and cool cotton bag designing. One partic family with adhd children delighted with us!
Too busy to take photos but took this one at the beginning. Got a spot outside Lloyds Bank so ideally situated and someone came back with a donation for us as they thought we were doing something so good and that paid for the stall!
God is good.

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Messy Church in Mawsley

Margaret Withers - 15 April 2009

Mawsley is a new development in the East Midlands near Northampton. Few people have lived there for more than six years and turnover is high. There are a large number of young families, with some parents commuting to London. Houses are generally spacious; there is a school, shops and a community centre but no church building, so the people have to be 'church' where they are.

The church worships at the community centre on Sunday and at the school on Tuesday when the curate leads collective worship. In order to reach whole families and have some simple Christian teaching, he and his wife held an Advent 'Messy Church' in December 2007. It was so successful that they followed it with an Easter event. The third event was a Messy Christingle held on Sunday afternoon 14th December 2008. About 60 children and their parents packed into the school hall to take part in seasonal activities including making their own Christingles. Many of the activity leaders were on the edge of the church, but involved with working in the school or as leaders of uniformed organisations. They are experiencing Christianity in a similar practical way to most of the children and parents.

Refreshments were offered in a running buffet, during the event. The afternoon ended with a short Christingle service with everyone seated on the hall floor. For a few seconds the only light was from the Christingles in each child's hand, lighting up their faces as they worshipped Jesus, the light of the world. The silence was a prayer in itself.

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Messy Church in South Croxton, Leicestershire

Susan Leighton - South Croxton, Leicestershire - 15 April 2009

There's a report on the Messy Church in South Croxton, Leicestershire, on the CPAS website.

Visit the CPAS website to read the story

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The 100th Messy Church!

Anna Biddlecombe - Oxfordshire - 27 March 2009

We are very excited to be the 100th Messy Church to register and really appreciate being part of the Messy Church family! As I write we are in the throes of planning our 4th Messy Church in Carterton and are very much looking forward to some Easter messiness! We ran and advertised our first Messy Church session as a trial in December last year and were delighted by the enthusiastic response from those who came along and decided that perhaps we had heard God right and Messy Church was a way forward for us to begin to see the lives of our friends and others in the town touched and changed by Him! We decided then to go for it and do Messy Church once a month after school on a Wednesday.

Our team is a relatively small number of women (6) with help from our very willing husbands as and when they can! We mostly met doing an Alpha course a couple of years ago which continued as a church housegroup and as we grew together as a group and as Christians we felt that we wanted to do something in our community to help our friends with children manage to get to church and enjoy it! We talked about things we enjoyed doing and what kind of shape that something might look like and as we talked I remembered seeing Messy Church on the Fresh Expressions DVD and thought it could help us shape our something!

We googled 'Messy Church' , stayed up far too late talking about it all and went away excited to prayer about it! Several months later here we are we three months worth of Messy Church under our belts! Many of the team are new to leading anything and have found it a challenge but have tackled it with faith, prayer and a willingness to get stuck in which has been a huge blessing to me and to the Messy Churchers!

We had nearly 60 in total at our last Messy Church and are already reaching the point where we need to think creatively about how to use the team and the space available to us to best build relationships with those who are coming! Its a good challenge to be facing!

Our church, Carterton Community Church, part of Oxfordshire Comunity Churches, is itself a relatively new church plant and has been very supportive of Messy Church seeing it as a vital part of our being church in our town. We meet in our local Methodist church which is in the centre of our small Oxfordshire town, best known for being home to RAF Brize Norton.

Our Messy Church sessions pretty much follow suggestions from the Messy Church book which in itself has made the whole venture so much more manageable for us (thank you!). As we have no musicians on the team (and non we can borrow either!), we use Hillsongs Kids DVDs projected onto a big screen for our singing during worship times. This is our only major 'innovation' and seems to be appreciated by the children and parents alike!

One of my best Messy Church moments has been children asking to sing our 'theme' song 'One Way Jesus' and hearing a mum and daughter comment on how great it is and singing it together at the top of their voices! Now all the team has to do is work on actually learning the actions, although I am sure our lack of co-ordination adds something to the worship and hopefully makes God smile!!

We thank God helping us to find something that does seem to be touching lives of those who come and we pray that He will continue to draw people closer to Him through the Messy Churches across our country and beyond.

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