Messy Church is one church's attempt to be church for families who might want to meet Jesus, belong to their local church and bring up their children as Christians but can't cope with traditional Sunday morning church services.
How it started!!!
The first Messy Church began in 2004 when a group at St Wilfrid's in Cowplain near Portsmouth were frustrated because, as a church, we were hardly reaching any children with God's story.
We had lovely buildings and facilities but we weren't using them enough. We had wonderful creative people in the church, and the area we lived in needed as much community-building as possible, being a rather featureless suburb.
There was a lot of sympathy towards church in general but the church wasn't offering anything that really gripped the imagination of local families.
We decided very early on to try to do something for all ages together, partly out of a belief that we grow best as a church when we walk the journey with as many different people as possible, and partly from a desire to help families grow together in their walk of faith, not see Christianity as something you grow out of when you're eleven.
The rest is history... a messy present... and an unknown future that you may well be part of too!
What it might look like!!
The hall is buzzing with conversation. Around a table adults and children burst into laughter as they wrestle with metallic tubing and googly eyes and their teenage helpers despair of ever creating the promised artefact.
A toddler slaps green paint on a huge sheet of card under the watchful eye of a Granny (not sure if they're related or not - it doesn't really matter). A five-year-old watches wide-eyed as an enthusiastic leader shows her how to bang in a nail.
There's a delicious smell wafting out of the kitchen. The ten-year-olds, intent on their glass-painting, agree it must be jacket potatoes. The vicar takes a photo of the surreal result of the junk modelling and two mums catch up on the gossip as they drink welcome cups of tea and slowly decorate gift bags while their children make something unidentifiable but very chocolatey upstairs.
The cooks should be getting the plates stacked, but one of the mums needs to talk about her problems with her foster children.
I would be panicking about the story for the celebration later, but there's a huge collage of The Great Banquet to assemble before five o'clock, the powder paint has proved a formidable weapon of mess creation in the hands of Jack, and we've barely got started on the lettering and whoops, someone's kicked over the gluepot...
Just another Messy Church.
Messy Church is one church's attempt to be church for families who might want to meet Jesus, belong to their local church and bring up their children as Christians but can't cope with traditional Sunday morning church services.
It's a once-a-month time of creativity, worship and eating together.
For resources on developing, and birthing a messy church visit www.messychurch.org.uk where you will find resources, a blog, a book and community sharing
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