MESSY CHURCH - Sat. June 14

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.
Impress them on your children.
Deuteronomy 6:5-7

The single most-cited category of Fresh Expression are for Children: 21% (88 out of 450 listed as Anglican). Indeed, an impressive 29% (129) of all Anglican Fresh Expressions say they are either Children's Fresh Expressions and / or Fresh Expressions for Under-Fives and Their Families. Many of these are also School-based and School-linked Churches and Congregations.
[source the FX directory: http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk/directory_section.asp?id=16]

By comparison...

19% (82) are communities identifying as having "Alternative Forms of Worship"
14% (60) say they are "Network-Focused Churches"
13% (58) are "Youth Congregations"
12% (50) identify themselves as "Cell Churches."
6% (26) see themselves as "Traditional Church Plants"
3% (12) are listed as "Base Ecclesial Communities."

Children are indeed the church of the present and the future!

What follows is about one of the most innovative and popular forms of Children's Fresh Expressions in the UK.

See RURAL FX - SOUTHREPPS - MULTI-GENERATIONAL w/ CELL... for another model of how to involve children in an FX.

MESSY CHURCH – Sat. June 14.

Near the birthplace of John Bunyan, in Bedford UK (that’s where he wrote Pilgrims Progress, the most widely- read allegory in the English language)…

Deborah I met up at the train station. She had been staying with and seeing friends in London, while I had been gallivanting about Sheffield and Manchester. Did I tell you about the towering tree-less Moorlands or the narrow one-lane Snake Pass? Now there’s a way worth traveling.

Anyway, after checking into our B & B for the night, we found traditional pub fare of fish, chips and peas (and a Guinness) at the Pilgrim’s Progress Pub (apt name, what?).

The next day at MESSY FIESTA, we both had the most fun we had had in a long while. Sixty enthusiasts were there with us, most “newbies” to this exciting family oriented FX: MESSY CHURCH

LUCY MOORE

Honestly, we’d follow the founder of MESSY CHURCH, Lucy Moore, just about anywhere she went: such contagious joy: brilliant, engaging, animated, funny, passionate, profound – and dramatic! She is an actress after all. And so eager to receive – she gave me time for questions both before and after the event. (Maybe endless energy is a prerequisite for FX).

Her story: In about 2003, the church she belonged to in Portsmouth had great facilities and talented people (especially in doing crafts) but few children. The people she and her priest husband were meeting said they found coming to church way over the top. If that was what was required to follow Jesu… well, it just wasn’t going to happen. Gradually they settled on a monthly weekday after-school programme: a middle ground between church and then outside world – but it doesn’t necessarily lead to church – its not that sort of thing.

SAMPLING HOW IT WORKS.

3:30-4 pm they gather, the kids coming straight from school brought by their parents or caregivers. There are games available but there’s nothing organized at this point - no agenda.

Please: no dropping off the kids to go shopping – the staff are not just child-minders. This is ministry for and with the whole family. Parents arrive knackered: “wiped out” - they need time to unwind and have fellowship, too. So others will have set things up. Often such is life that parents say they rarely have time together with their kids. This will be good time together.

4:00-5 pm There are craft stations set up with an eager volunteer at each table who knows how to do the craft; 10 (yes, that’s right, count ‘em: TEN!) crafts account for different ages and genders, talent levels and media. The crafts have been selected to support a theme arising out of a Bible story.

So at this Messy Fiesta, after hearing the history and theory, each participant made expressions of our own hopes for the day by twisting and or combining chenille wire (a. k.a. "pipe cleaners" – but who has pipes anymore?).

To the blue steam ship I had made, John, my mate to my left, added his grey spiraling helix of spiritual growth, and voila! our boat had steam and was ready to sail away!

Later, we painted with bubbles and string and marble paint. Talk about MESSY (it’s where the term comes from). I even made an edible pig-pen complete with pig! [Guess what Jesus story this is about? Watch for it on Sept 7 at the Rez!]

Well, at least I tried to make a pig pen - I am not very good at crafty thingies.

The impact on a person of a little freedom to be creative can go a surprisingly long way in facilitating personal change and drawing out reflective insights. Case in point: Lucy recounted a story from another Messy session when, at the end of a similar craft-time, an octogenarian, a proper English lady, proudly held up her little pencil puppet that she had just made. Smiling from ear to ear, she said to all gathered,

"This is the first thing I have ever made." She took it home with her - you couldn't have pried it from her. Who would want to?

Rhetorical Question: in the way people normally do church, where are adult members of the congregation given freedom to be creative?

Anyway, back to our FIESTA:

BTW, doing the craft BEFORE the story gets you really curious about what it might be. That was clever in creating ownership!

5:00-5:15 worship - a quick song, the creative telling of the Bible story, and, after a brief prayer, the kids race off for food and the rest rush to catch up!

5:15- 6 pm - a meal together. Something simple. And a different crew to clean up! Yea!

Explore their website for more ideas. http://www.messychurch.org.uk/

Such has been the popularity of Messy Church that Lucy has now engaged full time to advance it.

MESSY CHURCH is for people of all ages:

MESSY VALUES:

- Provide an opportunity for people of all ages to worship together.

- Help people of all ages feel like they belong to church and to each other

Ask do they come to this as another activity or do they belong to it?

- Help people of all ages be creative together

- Introduce Jesus through hospitality to people of all ages.

In other words,

chilling together,

creating together,

celebrating together and

chomping together!

I don’t know – don’t quote me on this – but I had to wonder from their questions if some of the participants might have been looking to beef up their own Sunday School attendance – which isn’t the point.

QUESTIONS

Lucy is still working on how to go deeper into Christian discipleship with her many participants of MESSY CHURCH while yet respecting those VALUES. How can you go deeper only meeting once a month? And with so little time during a Messy session to explore the content of the gospel? Can something be done in homes? Cells maybe? To respect Messy values must all the gatherings be multi-generational? What things might adults need to talk through to grow in Christ but hesitate to discuss in front of their kids? Might some things be covered in a family home but then send the kids off to one side or on their own session?

By the way, no one has yet made an Alpha for families. Wazzup with that?

The financial load if you are using your own church facilities is minimal – from $4-8 a head per session (12 session a year). They usually put out a basket for donations, but you don’t charge for MESSY CHURCH. Your wardens will have to find a way to get this funded if your church wants to be the sending /supporting body.

You’ll need to make sure it doesn’t cut into the volunteer base for Sunday School. This takes at least a dozen volunteers but I hear many teenagers love this stuff!

And as with many FX, you probably WILL have to limit the number of church people who you let join or there won’t be any room for the non-churched people you are trying to reach. This is whole lot of fun!

SADLY THE DAY ENDED SOOOO SOON...>

Lucy, sitting on the floor, quietly demonstrated a story for us using felt cloth, nesting cups, gold coins, wooden figures of trees and pigs and a father and two sons (surely you know the story now!) There was only one child there. All the adults sat transfixed as we watched Lucy carefully put out each item and listened to Lucy’s disarmingly simple recasting of the original.

She held out a little green circle. What is that? In the parable it would become a symbol of the farm - but the little girl could see more than we could. She said, "That's the world." Good guess I thought but wait for the story to be told... yet she really was right you know!

While we were afraid to speak, the little girl - hand in the air at Lucy’s every invitation – continued doing major theological unpacking for us all and with stunning sophistication! Humbled, we adults just let it all soak in.

You see, as Lucy says, Church is for life-long learning.

For too long we have required families to head off in two different directions on Sunday mornings to learn the way of Christ. So children and adults have been pilgrims imprisoned in our progress in our separate stations of the church. Why can’t we come to learn of Jesus together and also grow in HIM– our kids and us - together?

As Lucy said: STAY MESSY!