Share a theme for your own Messy Session or suggest ways to improve on existing ones.
We've just planned our Autumn term themes and wanted to tell some of the stories of Jesus...
Choosing to Listen- the wise and foolish builders
Choosing to Grow- the sower and his seeds
Choosing to say sorry- the prodigal son
Choosing to Follow- the wise men seek Jesus
Let you know how it goes...
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Messy Church at Mansefield Trinity Church Kilwinning
We recently held our first Messy Church, as an expansion to our existing Craft afternoons for children in the community.
We had 34 kids attend, only two of them from congregation.
Our theme was taken from a book on School Assemblies where we looked at icons.
So we made Celtic Crosses, fish biscuits, amongst many, and I as 'preacher' linked all of them together in the talk and then used my bubble machine asking each child to imagine their name on a bubble as it floated towards God.
I was extremely careful how I worded it all as every child in attendance was Asian, so whilst we didn't know much about their faith backgrounds, we know only the two from the congregation.
Great day, great fun, already planning the next and have just found the Messy Christingle resource online so am planning that for next December
May 24th saw the first Messy Church event at Holy Sepulchre, Ashington (Diocese of Newcastle). We aimed at 9-11 year olds and their families but invited our Sunday school and weekly Teatime Church children. (Teatime Church is our weekly group for 0-9 year olds).
We based the afternoon around the theme of Pentecost and made windsocks, Menonite crosses, decorated tealight holders, bookmarks, quilted pincushions, crotched friendship bracelets, iced biscuits, decorated an altar frontal and a chasuble, had a drumming workshop and in the music corner played instruments and sang.
The adults were all ready for the halfway tea-break but despite stopping the children, I looked around and most were still actively engaged.
The act of worship had been devised by our 2 teenage leaders and vicar and it was a delight to see Rev. Elizabeth wearing the chasuble in front of the altar frontal made by all. The Holy Spirit was definately moving amongst the 90 people present.
The afternoon culminated in a magnificent afternoon tea provided by our generous congregation.
I for one can't wait for our next Messy Church - hopefully to celebrate Advent and I have already been stopped in the local supermarket and asked by one of the children who attended if they can bring their cousins next time.
We have just held our 4th Messy Church Event. Held on Good Friday morning we advertised this as an opportunity for families / carers and children young people to come along and explore the Easter Story through crafts / activities / celebration time and Hot cross buns and easter cakes!
Activities: Feet painting and washing!, wooden crosses, easter gardens, palm leaves, twirlies and banners, easter egg creations, bookmarks, playdough table for smaller folk.
After the activities we told the easter story by processing as if we were on the first palm sunday, we sat round in the sanctuary and shared bread and wine (juice), talking about how the last supper was a meal that friends had together. We talked about Jesus washing the disciples feet, his death on the cross and how easter sunday is a special time for hope and new life.
A good morning of fellowship. I have received good feedback from those that came, particularly about how conversations with their children, grandchildren that they had after the event.
Hi Lucy - hope you are well.
Our Christmas celebration took place on Wednesday 10th December 3.30 - 6pm
following the usual format. For the worship time however we decided to do an impromtu nativity in true Messy Church fashion! The children were asked during craft time which character they would like to be and we had already laid out and labelled all the costumes. Getting ready took a little while! - but everyone helped.
Then we went into the chapel as usual and the children sat in their allotted groups on the platform. The script was simple and the children followed it naturally. They were able to walk around the chapel during the "travelling parts" and we sang carols to accompany them.
We processed out to "Come and join the celebration" and then had our well-earned party food. The children were super - everyone listened - and there was certainly a special atmosphere.
The following Sunday we invited anyone who could come to a children's Christmas service which would
include the Nativity play .
We had a good response and the whole church really enjoyed the chidren's presentation.
Praise the Lord.
Just thinking about next year. We are going to tell the stories of three Old Testament characters- and try and relate their situations to our families' lives. Calling it Sticky Situations... and doing Daniel in the Lions' den, Jonah in the whale and David and Goliath.
Lots of animal crafts and looking forward to making a giant!!! Sure one of our mums can manage that out of newspaper!
Last month, we dared to go more 'serious' for a session, and covered the topic of Remembrance. We had a lot of prayer go into it from various people, as it's usually quite difficult to get the children (And grown ups) to be quiet for any length of time.
It was a pretty amazing session, with one of the parents in the balcony playing the last post on hi trumpet, and two girls lowering flags and then poppy leaves (made from red tissue paper) falling from the ceiling.
We don't really know how much of a deep impact the session had on the children or their parents, but there was an air of solemnity in the place, which we had not experienced before.
Just want to encourage you to keep asking people to pray, and also to dare to go out of your comfort zones - and also to dare to allow the young ones to experience something out of theirs - they probably cope better than us adults a lot of the time!
This is a theme which spans the whole Bible. You can find some new ideas over in the ideas area:
If you would like to share something with the community or respond to any of the posts, have your say here.