Great Barton Messy Church

Caroline Vallance - 19 March 2009

I had promised to let Lucy know how Messy Church Great Barton (near Bury St Edmunds) has been going. We've done 2 now and it's been fantastic! We've stopped our morning once a month family service and now do Messy Church at 4pm instead! We had over 60 at our first one!! The numbers were down slightly last time but lots of people are really enthusiastic. We have a great team of people to help us - even a 70+ gentleman who has just lost his wife and has found a new lease of life helped by messy church. We've just had our own roadside banner printed and it will go up in the next few days so the whole village will know about Messy Church!!

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Ecumenical Messy Church

Ann Leonard - 19 March 2009

The Hayling Island ecumenical Messy Church is thriving.
Joys? We have more and more children coming - some of whom do not come to our churches - so we are building links with no church families.

Frustrations - volunteers get tired and overloaded and sometimes feel overburdened and we are in danger of losing some. And not enough new ones are coming forward.

The key teams are the catering team and the craft team and I think they are both a bit precarious at times.

We 3 ministers are committed to the project and so is the Baptist youth minister but building committed teams of lay people across the churches is a challenge - and it is always the very busy people who volunteer!

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Messy Church Demo Day

Veronica Priest - Blackburn - 19 March 2009

Veronica Priest is one of our Regional Coordinators. Here she describes a day on Messy Church that she led last month.

My Messy Church demo in the snowy climes of East Lancs was well received. Only a small number of the 60 adults/25 children booked in failed to turn up so we had quite a church full. We are planning another one in a different part of the Diocese on May 16 and already bookings are flooding in. I have asked people to let our Children's Work Adviser know where and when Messy Church is happening. She will keep me informed and I can keep you informed how we are going/growing.

I chose the Bible Mountains theme because everyone there was already a Christian and would have known the other stories really well (I hope!), so I wanted to give them an experience similar to those attending any kind of Christian 'church' activity for the first time. It seemed to work. I chose 7 activities - the most popular (and messy) being the mouthwatering mountains!!!

As I didn't have a pre-organised team to 'man' each activity, I printed out the Bible text for each activity and people were encouraged to read it together/to each other and this encouraged everyone to work together, especially if there were 'strangers' on their table. There was a great atmosphere and many people were asking lost of questions.

I spent some time chatting with three men who were concerned about 'craft' not appealing to the males. I had already commented, in my introductory talk, that if we as a church are wanting to invite families to come and learn about the Lord Jesus, what message are we giving out if, when they come (dads/uncles included) they are met by a welcoming body of women and children from the church? So, we need to encourage the men in our congregations to get involved (which might dictate when Messy Church is held) and use their talents to get alongside the men we have invited in. Hope all that makes sense! It certainly gave the three in discussion something to think about.

One of them is a German Lutheran Pastor on an exchange with Blackburn Diocese' s link with Braunschweig Landeskirken. He has been in one of our parishes for nearly a year and is due to return to Germany in a few months time. He wants to take Messy Church there!!!!! We have mutual friends in Germany, through the link, who I know will be very excited about learning what Messy Church is all about. So brush up your German, Lucy! The Mess is spreading!

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Hanham Methodist Messy Church

Nesta Hogg - 19 March 2009

As an older person involved with Messy Church I have been asked to write about my thoughts on it. I have to say that my immediate response to this New Idea was 'Why?'. What is the matter with Sunday School or Youth Church? My friends and I always enjoyed them, and what a stupid name anyway, and it wouldn't really concern me - how wrong can one be! The Wives group were asked to help in the kitchen with the refreshments, I understood only for the first one, now one year later the three volunteers are still in the kitchen, and I think Barbara and Sylvia would agree with me that it is a very enjoyable couple of hours once a month.

My Mum and Dad never came to Sunday School with me, but the nice thing about Messy Church is that the whole family joins in. Ben and Lewis arrive with their Nans, Oliver and Sophie with Mum, Grandma and sometimes Great Grandma. Florence's daughter and granddaughter came last time and it was so good to see them joining in. I am certain
that the children will feel it is a family occasion where they meet up with lots of other friends and their families in a special place and have fun. My other delight is seeing the Dads who get down to recapturing their Blue Peter days.

The last session it was making Noah's Ark and we certainly had some fantastic arks, not sure how many animals would have been saved though! The theme is continued in church at a short service organised and fronted by our much maligned 'teenagers'. Aaron was 'doing' the PA, Eleanor leading the service (Jessica was in Wales celebrating a birthday), the puppets help with the story and singing. The children join in enthusiastically when telling the Good or Bad News of the previous week, which is then included in the prayers. The young people all put a lot of effort in their preparations.

I do believe that the children and their parents will feel part of our church as a result of coming and joining in the activities of Messy Church.

For any of you still awake I'll conclude by saying that rather unwillingly, I am learning that life in 2008 is not the same as that in the 1930's and I must accept it, live with it and even enjoy it!!!

Reproduced with permission from the Hanham Methodist Church Magazine February 2009

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Messy Church in Nolton, Bridgend

Chrys M Tremththanmor - Parish of Coity and Nolton, Bridgend - 17 March 2009

It is rather unusual for children to pester their parents to take them to a church activity. But messy church seems to be proving an event that children just don't want to miss.

The monthly messy church programme at the Parish of Coity with Nolton started in September, 2008. We meet on the fourth Saturday of the month (excluding December!) for an hour which starts with a short act of worship and is followed by the day's theme. It is aimed at 3-13 year olds and a carer must stay with the child for the entire session.

Our first messy church was based on Noah and the Ark. Eighteen people attended, and the younger children coloured in animal masks whilst the older children made a rather stunning Ark out of cardboard boxes. The 'animals' went inside with Mr Noah and had water flung at them by those who were outside! A general water fight ensued on a wonderful sunny day.

The second messy church featured a guest speaker, a shepherd and her collie dog. Afterwards we played herding games and made sheep out of cotton wool. We had twenty-four people turn up.

The third session, in November, was set up in the church. Six interactive 'stations' were offered, based on the theme 'Who am I to God?' A Bible reading for each station was accompanied by an activity. For example, Jesus washing the feet of his disciples was the reading for the station which saw children put a bare foot into paint, place the footprint onto a piece of paper, and then have their foot washed and dried by Fr Michael. Sheep were 'lost' in the church, and when a child found one this was taken to Bishop David, our 'Good Shepherd.' Forty people came to that service and one child burst into tears when she had to leave!

In January we turned our attention to 'treasure.' After the Godly Play 'The Great Pearl' we had a treasure hunt in the church and then decorated treasure boxes. In February some teenagers from our Youth Church Club took on roles for a walk around play. Interwoven with the story of the prodigal daughter was a scene between Jonah and a (talking) bean plant and an interchange between Jesus, Mary, and Martha.

A number of the families are not regular church attendees and it appears that children are telling their friends about the fun they're having. What is also encouraging is that the parents seem to enjoy the activities as much as the children. Our numbers seem to be settling between 20-30 people a time.

A full set of sessions have been planned until the end of the academic term 2009. Click on any of the thumbnail images below for larger images, or more photographs can be seen on the parish website at www.coitywithnolton.org.uk.

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Cholsey's Messy Church Story

Sue Avery - Cholsey, South Oxfordshire, UK - 12 February 2009

You know, you read about how people have set up Messy Church and have been surprised by the numbers that came, and you think, yeah well that's because it's based in a town. Well, let me tell you it's not. It happened to us in Cholsey. Cholsey is just a normal village in south Oxfordshire. We did very little advertising, just in 'Little Fishes', a mother and baby group that I help out with, and literally in and on the church Hall with the same approach as everyone else - you've no idea how many will come, start small and see what happens and then build. I was expecting 20-40 people. We had 78! I am still quite amazed. Lucy, you and your team have hit the target with this idea.

I am quite lucky, I went to visit a Messy Church, in Didcot (nearby town), in the summer and was very excited about the concept, brought it back to my church, raised it with the PCC and 6 months later we did a try out in church with just the congregation. There was a 25% increase in attendance! A few tired brains later, we came up with the theme 'Creation', 6 activities (sorry, prefer not to call them crafts as that seems to alienate a lot of people for some reason).

We did 'ocean in a jar' ( a mix of oil and water and blue food colouring), 'potato print stars and moon', 'fruit kebabs', 'grass seed men' (the toe of women's tights, stuffed with grass seed, then cotton wool, put extra balls of cotton wool on for ears and nose and secure with elastic bands, attach googly eyes and mouth, tie the end of the tight, put in a plastic cup, water and wait!!), 'tea lights' glasses decorated with tissue paper with candle inside
'junk animals' and most importantly we had a prayer wall - see Didcot's blog (I have brazenly copied the idea because it's so good!)

We had a 'come together' time of worship, 2 songs (we used power point for lyrics and added pictures on to make it more fun), the story of creation, prayers and the grace. We finished with a large amount of cake and the fruit kebabs.

The atmosphere was so exciting. There was such a buzz. The kids ( mostly pre-schoolers) had great fun. God was there and I hope He had fun too. I did although I was dog tired at the end.

I was thanked so much and received many many compliments. I received one email which just said 'Sue, It was fantastic. Faultless'. I don't put this in to blow our trumpet (I know it wasn't faultless) but to show how much people appreciated it. I bumped into one of the mum's dropping off her child at nursery and she told me how much fun her daughter had had and they were definitely coming to the next one.

Someone else said to me 'You've got a lot to live up to now'. Well, hopefully we have. I know that none of this could have been done without God giving me the vision and enthusiasm and determination to do it. I was adamant I would not do a Jonah. I know that I couldn't have done most of this stuff without God's help. There were times I hadn't a clue what to do and suddenly the answer was there, in many different forms. There were times I found hard, but that was just because I hadn't handed the problem over. As soon as I had, then the answer appeared. You really would think I should learn, but I'm human I still make mistakes. Anyway this isn't about me, this is about what God can do and does, so Thank you God!

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Messy goings on in Cirencester

Bob Morris - Cirencester - 20 January 2009

Dear Lucy and Team,

Hi, my name is Bob Morris and I am Minister for Children and Families at Cirencester Baptist Church. Yesterday (Sun 18th) we launched our own "MESSY CHURCH"...so thank you for the concept!

we are a large congregation (membership of just over 200)and have a large children's and youth ministry. We have found though that growth is difficult due to space issues and activities for children on Sunday mornings so we were looking for something a bit "outside of the box" to start up!

I had hoped to start small (!!??) but a combination of a little advertising ion our toddler group and the fact that our church members rose to the challenge and brought their friends along resulted in 112 people on the premises!

Thanks for such a great idea!

Regards

Bob Morris

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News from Xtras in Bournemouth!

Tina Shave - Bournemouth - 28 November 2008

The light party went really well with lantern making, tealight holders, face painting and glitter painting. In worship we had a hero parade to show off all the costumes and on the stage we had laid out in tealights in great big words GOD is... At the end of worship time we took everyone up to the balcony and switched the lights off so GOD was really shining!!! It was awesome.

After this we had a huge sweetie hunt followed by hotdogs and make your own toffee apples. We all loved it and the children we asking to go back to see God shining before they went home! We also had the local radio station there and parents were interviewed about Xtras which was lovely to hear.

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An update from L:19 - a Messy Church in Liverpool

Jane Leadbetter - Liverpool - 18 November 2008

Another update from L:19, a Messy Church in Liverpool. Check out what Jane Leadbetter, one of the leaders there, writes about publicity, celebration, the balance of backgrounds and networking. And give thanks for what God's doing up there - it sounds brilliant.

It's going great here at L:19 Messy Church in Liverpool. Last night we held Messy Fireworks. We put out flyers in two local schools and targeted one village with posters in shop windows. We catered sausage & mash for 80. 150 turned up! A miracle happened in the kitchen (have you ever counted out baked beans on a plate?). Our crafts were themed on bright colours & light - decorating light bulbs, candles etc. and the Celebration Time was about Jesus Light of the World then fireworks in the church gardens then sausage & mash. We have calculated that 40% of those at Messy Fireworks have no connections with our church, and we have to address the fact that as we are attracting more all ages with disabilities we must choose our messy crafts carefully. Like I've mentioned before, we still need more folk to help with messy chatting at meal time as we are spreading ourselves very thinly when so many new folk are coming. It's all rather overwhelming numbers wise but it's good to have different challenges already.

So 3 Messy Church dates under our belt now and Messy Christmas in 3 weeks time. We have 2 more Messy Churches starting in the diocese too and I haven't even started to shout out loud about it yet! Representatives from 4 churches came to see how we do Messy Church which happened quite naturally by chatting with friends.

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A Messy melange of photos...

Anonymous - 09 October 2008

We've been sent a number of photos of Messy Churches on a Harvest theme for you to enjoy. If you have some of your own images, do send them in to messychurch@brf.org.uk and we'll put them to use. (Do be sure to have all the appropriate permission for using photos of children).

From Sue Avery's Messy Church in Didcot:

From Jane Leadbetter's Messy Church in Liverpool:

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