Last spring, before this blog launched, the Spouse and I (with some help from the Editor) engaged in some good old-fashion brainstorming to come up with a title. Cheesy suggestions like Spirit Parenting and Raising Issues were soon scored off the list, but we had to play a lot of word games before we came up with the Messy Table. (I think it was the Spouse’s suggestion.) My own mother said that it hit the nail on the head – or, more to the point, described my mode of being accurately. (I have been known to neglect apple cores.) But I didn’t really realise that it was stealing.
At least adjectivally.
Lucy Moore started what she called Messy Church near Portsmouth, England in 2004. It’s a great idea – gather a group of parents, kids and everyone else who wants to come along for some hands-on crafts, cooking, and worship. Moore frames it as a missional activity, great for reaching out into the community to show what church can be when it’s more family than formality.
Churches all over the place have adopted this vision and have been hosting Messy Church afternoons. And Moore has supplied resources, too, to inspire congregations. Her book, Messy Church: Fresh ideas for building a Christ-centred community, is full of fantastic ideas. After solid introductory section on the whys and wherefores, she presents 15 Units, complete with bible backgrounds, food and activity ideas, as well as creative worship ideas.
It’s a bit strange I didn’t discover this movement sooner. I have been running events similar to this for the past couple of years, though admittedly without the emphasis on outreach. But outreach is inevitable when church looks like this. Families bring friends. Families visiting the church see that there is something different being offered for children and they come visit on a Saturday to see it for themselves.
At our church, we call our afternoon Milk & Honey but it turns out that it follows the format of a Messy Church afternoon fairly closely. We play and build, paint and glue to our hearts content, and then clean up and share food. We always make a point of sitting together in the sanctuary, too, for part of our afternoon. It is a formal and beautiful space, and I want the children to feel at home there. But on Saturdays, this space is also different and just for them. We make sure it feels like a place where kids can worship. I push the communion table back to make a larger space in the chancel. Then I set up pew cushions in a square, and place our tabletop lecture on the floor in the middle. When we enter the sanctuary with the children, one child gets to carry the Bible and the rest all walk in together. We talk about how we do this to show that the stories in the Bible are really important to us. Then we sing the crocodile song.
Last month, our theme was “Like grapes, we’re growing!” And here’s what it looked like.
Some of the ideas came from Lucy Moore’s book, some I dreamed up on my own, and some we invented together. The art was destined for the sanctuary – in a corner alcove that we call the children’s area. It used to be a place where the congregation displayed children’s art, and it’s where the nativity scene sits at Christmas. This summer, it’s going to be a bit of a vineyard. We will be holding early morning services all summer for families – our (sm)All Ages services – and the growing theme will be woven into everything that we do. There will be Sundays about growing in faith and growing green, growing together and growing bookish. We’ll use the vine to talk about bearing fruit, and do some praying for growth, too. Maybe at the next Milk & Honey, there will be fruit construction, maybe made from papier mache. It is sure to be a least a little messy. Because so much of life is. And messy can be beautiful, too.
