Messy Church in the Sunday Service

Peter Shears - Kingswood Methodist Church, Bristol - 21 June 2010

At Kingswood Methodist Church (in Bristol) we held our first Messy Church in March 2009 on a Saturday. Each of the 5 we have held since then - available time is a very big constraint for the 5 team leaders - has also been on a Saturday.

Earlier this year we started thinking about fitting the Messy Church format in to a Sunday Service. And that is what we did yesterday (20th June): merged our Saturday Messy Church with Sunday Worship. As it was Fathers Day we picked the theme of Jacob. Virtually all our normal Sunday congregation turned up - there had been murmurings that some would not - and many came away pleasantly surprised, telling us how much they had enjoyed it. ‘This is worship as much as any other’ was a comment from a Sunday regular not particularly familiar with the Messy Church idea. ‘If I had known beforehand what the service was going to be I would not have come. However, I’m glad I did not know because I thoroughly enjoyed it.’ Some of our normal Saturday crowd also turned up. We believe that it this something we can repeat but probably no more than twice a year. And our next Saturday Messy Church swiftly follows, on 3rd July.

Peter Shears

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Prodigal Son ideas and crafts

Kathy - Leominster, uk - 09 June 2010

We made marshmallow pigs on biscuits (I've previously done marshmallow pigs in 'mud' on top of chocolate angel delight but wasn't sure how many to cater for so decided biscuits was easier). Use one marshmallow for the face, cut 2 triangles of marshmallow for ears and stick them on each side. Use half a mini marshmallow for the snout and writing icing for eyes and 2 dots on the snout. The marshmallows stick reasonably well when cut but a bit of icing for glue always helps!

We made binoculars (out of rolled paper) to think about the father waiting for his son to come home and also made welcome home garlands out of tinsel, decorated with tissue paper flowers.

We also made a farm inside a small paddling pool using a bag of compost and farm toys - this was very popular!

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Footprint painting the easy way

Rachel Parkinson - Birstall, North Leicester - 05 April 2010

Years ago I had seen a large banner made by blanking off parts of the cloth to leave a cross shape revealed. People then walked all over it having dipped the soles of their feet in paint. The result - a footprint cross - was really effective. I wanted to do the same for our second Messy Church.

However, the first had been done by teenagers - our 'Messy Churchers' are mainly pre-school and infants. I wondered how many towels I should take! Then a mum had a wonderful idea - why not use wellies? She provided me with several her children had outgrown. We left them by the paint trays and children just slipped their feet into them. It was so popular that there was no way you could see discrete footprints in the finished product but that didn't matter. We used blue/green/red to make the Lent Cross.

Then at our Holy Saturday Messy Church we blanked off the cross and did the same with the outside parts, using yellow and orange paint - making it an Easter cross. It hung in Church on Easter Sunday and looked wonderful. Do protect the surface underneath as the amount of paint applied is likely to be significant!!

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The Recreation Story

Melissa Harrison - Winnetka, IL, USA - 05 March 2010

I combined the concept of Resurrection Eggs (very popular in the USA) and the Re-creation story from the Messy Church book 2. I put the symbols that were used to tell the Godly Play style story into plastic eggs. We then had an egg hunt. The children and I then opened the eggs together and I used the materials to tell the story.

Afterwards, I provided materials for the children to put together their own set of eggs and their own story books. The children decided to call the story The Miracle of Easter. I have seen the children use their kits to tell the story of Easter to their siblings, friends, and parents. I suspect that these egg sets will be used around here for a very long time. Thank you to Messy Church for such a beautiful telling of the Story of Jesus.

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Advent Candles

Anne - Kent UK - 23 November 2009

An unexpected hit at our Advent/Christmas Messy Church session yesterday were decorated Advent Candles. It was really just an extra 'filler' activity in case we needed it, but it really seemed to absorb a wide range of people - one Dad really got into it and produced a wonderful candle.

I just grabbed a box of plain candles - 1 inch diameter - from church (ordinary dinner candles would do fine), and provided pens that will write on wax - permanent OHP pens, or the kind of markers sold to write on CDs with are fine. I have used candle paint before, but it takes a while to dry, which isn't great if things have to be taken home at the end of the session.

To help things along I made a guide on a sheet of paper with a line marked with 24 divisions to lay the candle against - that was an important preparation. People then just used the guide to help them mark their candle and number the divisions. The candles were then decorated with Christmassy pictures.

It was very simple (and not expensive!) but people of all ages seemed to enjoy it.

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Candy canes

Charis Lambert - Morden Baptist Church - 19 November 2009

This year there seem to be loads of candy canes in the shops again. We are going to focus our Christmas Messy Church on the shepherds in the nativity story and use the candy canes ideas in crafts. In case you don't know the story behind the canes- easy to google it!!- each part of the cane says something about Jesus including turning it on its head to make a J.
The most exciting thing to share is that we found candy striped chenille sticks (pipecleaners!!) online to buy- www.craftycapers.co.uk - £1.25 for 20!!

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How to take Messy Church home

Sue Avery - 13 November 2009

Ever since I came to the Oxford messy fiesta, I've been thinking about one of the points you raised about how to take messy church home. Here in Cholsey we've been racking our brains a lot and we've come up with a very unoriginal idea which I thought I ought to share with you. We initially started with a leaflet telling people what our messy church is, the topic for the session, a list of the crafts, a few basic rules, dates for the next messy church and some contact details. We have since developed this into something akin to Sunday school take home sheets.

• Download a copy of the take-home sheets (PDF)

Again, you have to bear in mind that most of our "congregation" for want of a better word are quite young children. A lot of the info has been found on websites, but we do make a point of publishing the story (written in a child friendly way), with some activities, including a loose colouring sheet and again with dates and contact details. The simple idea is to take the story home with some fun things to do which will hopefully reinforce the story. I hope this may be of some use to some of the messy church leaders. It works for us, hopefully it will work for others too!

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How to make a Samaritan's Purse

L:19 Messy Church Team Liverpool - Liverpool, UK - 12 November 2009

Please follow the link to find out how to make a Samaritan's Purse.

Download the pdf

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How to do a Harvest Messy Church

Marie Beale - 12 November 2009

This is our first Messy Church so we thought it would be useful to let you know what is in store.

4-4.20ish CHILL
Grab a cuppa, juice and some cake. Catch up with friends, play board games, generally chill and have fun.

4.20 – 5.10ish CREATE
There are lots of activities in the main hall and the two side rooms. Adults feel free to have a go with you kids, most of the activities can be as complex or easy as you want them to be. Look out for….

• BIG ART! Add your face and handprint to the Messy Church crowd scene.


• Fruit and Veg prints


• Salt dough


• Fruit kebabs


• Cipher Wheel – code-breaking and making


• Cotton reel tanks – remember those…….


• Electrical circuits


• Making Jigsaws


• Still life drawing


• Nature weaving


• Clay Fish


• Decorating paper bags to take stuff home in.


• Conkers!

They all link somehow to our story of Feeding of the 5000, and our key words…problem, power and provision, see if you can work out how. Also please do add a leaf to our tree of thank you prayers.

5.10 – 5.30 CELEBRATE
Gather at the front of the hall for some worship songs and our bible story. Encourage kids to listen and join in.

5.30 CHOMP!
On the menu jacket potatoes, salad, beans, cheese and bolognaise. Crusty bread
Then brownies, fairy cakes or ice-cream cones for pudding.
Please take a seat at the back of the hall and we will serve food from the hatch. Bear with us as we have estimated numbers! Finish with Happy Birthdays.

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Tree of Life

Lucy Moore - Portsmouth, UK - 11 November 2009

'... The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:2, NIV).'

'Plant' a tree branch upright in a flowerpot.

Decorate leaf-shapes on one side to be as beautiful as you can make them, using coloured pens, glitter, stickers and collage materials.

On the other write or draw a prayer for someone you know who needs Jesus' healing.

Tie the leaves on to the tree with attractive thread or ribbon.

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