Messy Church!

What is Messy Church??

Messy Church is a fairly new way of being and doing church for those who find the normal Sunday services difficult, simply can't make them or simply don't want to come on Sunday mornings! It is a very informal, but can be equally rewarding, sacramental and fulfilling as 'normal' Church services, if it is done properly.

It starts by welcoming families and young people in church or a hall where an hour or so of about 5-7 activities, crafts and things-to-do all take place. Children move from one to the other after they have completed each one. Each activities relates to a theme, i.e. Messy Moses, Messy Mother's Day, Messy Jesus and so on... at each activity a different part of the story is told.

After an hour or so of exciting story telling and arts and crafts, the group then moves into a worship area, we use the church itself so people can get used to the atmosphere and building - it can be quite daunting and a scary place for those who have been hurt by the church or have never been before. The Worship space is decorated different to what it usually would be on normal Sunday. For example, last week we had Messy Moses, and used blue celophane to roll down the centre of the church to represent the red sea, we walked along the sea to the worship space where we hung our Israelite men on the pews where we sat (in other words, the crafts then become object for centring our worship and thoughts - nothing we do is wasted!) We sing songs, usually simple ones the children can join in with and love doing the actions to, and maybe one hymn-like song for the adults too (remember, its for ALL ages). Then we hear the message and what the story means for our lives (at Messy Moses, we interviewed Moses (the Vicar) and asked about his life, and ended with Jesus leading us). I think it's quite important that we don't dampen down the gospel or be ashamed of it, but we must be aware of the congregation and crowd that we are talking to - young? old? hurt? I know some of the children we have have been adopted, so talking about 'parenthood' is not easy! However, this is what is great about Messy Church, we get to spend time with the people Jesus loves over the crafts and in the worship. Worship only last about 20 minutes and end with prayers. I think it's important the Lord's Prayer is said. The adults will probably know it and are comfortable saying it, but the children have yet to learn it. Then we say the messy grace - which is the normal Grace, but with actions and a loudddddd AMEN! Argh! I love the crafts, but I love the worship more because children and adults can begin to come into the presence of God, in their OWN time, not ours.

Then we head back over to the hall where we eat food according to the theme of the month - last week was fish fingers (Red Sea 'n' that hahaha!) The children can take home their items and crafts, we can rest assured they had a good time AND heard something exciting and new about Jesus.

The great thing about Messy Church is that Communion can be celebrated for families during the worship time, all sorts can be explored on the people's territory.