What is this?
Climacus
Shipmate
So not to spiral off into tangents...
This was a while ago but I was catching up on a thread and forgot to ask. For some reason while on the tram I've remembered!
@North East Quine mentioned "Messy Church" on the Family Mass thread. What is it and why is it messy?
This was a while ago but I was catching up on a thread and forgot to ask. For some reason while on the tram I've remembered!
@North East Quine mentioned "Messy Church" on the Family Mass thread. What is it and why is it messy?
Comments
https://www.messychurch.brf.org.uk/
FWIW, my local parish church holds Messy Church on one Sunday afternoon per month, and it involves families/parents/guardians etc. etc. for whom Sunday mornings - or perhaps the Sunday morning Eucharist or Service of the Word (they alternate) - are not viable.
I'm sure other posters will have their own experiences, knowledge, and thoughts on the subject.
AIUI, it's not restricted to the C of E, but is found in most mainstream denominations.
I have no firsthand experience, so someone else will need to provide that. I’m aware of at least a few places in the US where it can be found.
ETA: Sorry, cross-posted with @Bishops Finger.
It grew very fast and we now have up to 600 people attending. As many of these people aren’t regular (or even irregular) worshippers at the church, this a a great form of outreach and evangelism.
It grew organically as parents/ grandparents/ carers arrived to collect their children from an after-school club held in church, and seemed reluctant to go home. So we started KFC, once a month, with games, crafts, a short service, and a meal, not necessarily in that order. It had input from Methodists and Anglicans, a musician and a primary teacher, and other volunteers.
There was no set charge, but we calculated the cost of the meal, displayed it, and without fail enough money was donated.
Eventually it folded as children moved school, leaders moved on, but for a few years it was Church for a number of families.
@Spike - 600 people attending? Or is that a typo for 60?
Messy Church works for some places, it seems. At my local church, the numbers at monthly MC equal those at the weekly Sunday morning service. AIUI, they feel that two smallish congregations are better than just one !
There is some crossover - the Messy Church people are responsible for the Crib Service on Christmas Eve, and there are sometimes Baptisms (usually in the Sunday morning Eucharist) of children from Messy Church. There may be other occasions at which the two congregations meet - certainly, some of those who help at MC are morning *regulars* anyway.
No, not a typo. We have a large church building (sometimes mistaken for a small cathedral) so with all the chairs removed it gives us loads of space. Even so, it still takes a lot of organising and lots of helpers, and we are extremely grateful to our two professional chefs who are used to cooking for that number of people
Very impressive!
Thank you all for sharing. It is interesting to hear of different ways people gather and worship.
The whole thing is craft-based which is fine if you like that kind of thing and the assumption seems to be that all children do.
We once had the baptism of an older child at Messy Church and once the vicar had done the formal bits everyone was given a water pistol to round it off.
They can be found in various denominations, but this job description (for the United Reformed Church) is, I think, fairly representative:
https://christianjobs.co.uk/sites/default/files/2019-05/Job Description Updated - Children and Families Worker -2_0.pdf
It is not about assuming all children want to do the same things, it is about making it available to families who would be interested in it. Messy church is not just about kids. It is designed to be intergenerational. Many families are finding they do not have enough time as a family unit. Not only can parents and kids can participate in the program, but retired people can also be involved like teaching younger generations new skills.
But, as you say, not everyone will be interested. Still, where two or three are gathered together in His name...
OK but in reality, it is just about kids and a specific kind of activity aimed at kids. What new skills in cutting and sticking are retired people teaching in Messy Church?
There's also now a thing called Bubble Church.
I see there's a *Bubble Church* in Our Town, meeting one Sunday a month at 1pm. Interesting - thanks for the link @fineline !
Our Place has a monthly Saturday afternoon/evening (530pm-730pm) *Youth Club*, which incorporates much of what Messy Church does, BUT it does not AFAIK have any input from parents/grandparents/carers. It is at a low ebb - sometimes only one or two children turn up (the age range is 7-16, but, in effect, is 7-11) - and could do with a rethink. Messy Church might be an answer, but not necessarily the only one.
Unfortunately, the couple who started and run it brook no interference, and everything MUST be done as they decree, with anyone so bold as to suggest something different being told in no uncertain terms that, if they think they can do better, they can go ahead and take over...
There is though the phenomenon I’ve experienced in two very rural churches (ie churches that already didn’t have a service every week) where one of the services they did have was replaced with Messy Church, to which no one new went, because there was no demand.
One church I know has persisted with this for over 10 years now, accepting the drop in total congregation that week from 16 over 50s to about 4, and those 4 are ‘normal’ congregants attending through gritted teeth because ‘my parish church right or wrong’*
I’ve got no problem with it where it’s meeting a need, but I’ve seen it now in multiple situations where it isn’t. Where it isn’t, get rid.
*one of whom, in his 80s, once described Messy Church in the local pub as the ‘monthly punishment beating’ but he couldn’t bring himself to be honest with the vicar.
I’ve got no problem with it where it’s meeting a need, but I’ve seen it now in multiple situations where it isn’t. Where it isn’t, get rid.
This.
I have zero problem with children being in services, it's creating separate congregations within a church that rubs me the wrong way. The church gathered as one community should be the goal imo, splitting off into separate groups feels like missing the point.
If the conversations aren't caused by the crafts they can surely happen anywhere. Also, is it a good thing to make conversations the focus of a church service rather than the Eucharist? Conversations are all well and good but you can have them after church.
I do agree that not all children prefer the informal messy style, as not all adults prefer more formal services - so it’s good that this is called “Messy Church” rather than being designated a children’s service.
One size does not need to fit all.
Sure, but then why the need to insist that it's still real church? To me that feels like trying to have it both ways. Something run by the church can be achieving good things with outsiders while still pointing them to the gathered church community. The problem is with creating a whole new community that generally is entirely separate. This is also like pretending it's not aimed at (neurotypical) kids when it overwhelmingly is.
It is unfortunately overwhelmingly attended by entirely separate congregations, in my experience. It's also very much aggressively advertised as effectively kids' holiday club (what I think Americans would call vacation Bible school) outside of school holidays. I'm sure it wasn't concieved as that as an idea, but in my experience the primary outreach is at primary schools.
I have no problems with splitting into small groups per se, you can do this without making it the focus of the service.
And it’s particularly problematic when people who’ve never attended a style of service are judging that style of service to be “not real church.” It’s one thing to say “it doesn’t sound like something I would like.” But if one has never participated in or observed it, how can one possibly judge it to be “not real church”?
Point is, as mentioned before, no one medium meets the needs of all. One reason why there was a Great Division, and then a Reformation, and the rise of denominationalism. What unites us is not how we do things but whom we confess.
And I can get that, at least up to a point. I’m all on board with the traditional “marks” of the church in Reformed understanding: the church is founded wherever the Word is rightly preached and the sacraments are rightly administered. (Some would add and discipline is rightly exercised.)
That said, I try not to let any misgivings I may have about something like Messy Church lead me to making judgments about whether it is or isn’t “real church.” I do so partly because I know my opinion may be not only based on biases but also on misunderstanding or incomplete information. I also do so because if Messy Church is actually welcoming someone on behalf of Christ and creating community centered around Christ, who am I to argue? Wherever two or three are gathered . . . .
I don’t disagree with any of that, but in my admittedly limited experience of the past 20 years Messy Church is the only thing that gets provided whether *anyone* wants it or not.
Where people want it, absolutely no problem at all, but I’ve seen the effects (actually I’ve been part of it) of congregations gritting their teeth through a format no one wants *for over a decade* because the incumbent felt that one day some children or indeed adults that want that sort of thing would turn up. Which they didn’t.*
*village church in a benefice of 7 churches, 250 inhabitants, count the U18s on one hand.
I'm referring here to the C of E, though no doubt there were other denominations with 11am and 630pm services whose congregations were largely separate.
And I think I’ve said this already, but to be clear, I’ve never encountered Messy Church in real life. I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered an American church that offered it, though I know there are some. So what I know about it is purely from reading about it.
As for 'proper church' and theological misgivings, I guess that comes down to whether you think God requires the Eucharist to be part of every church service - or indeed every get-together of Christians. Whether it needs to be weekly, or can be once a fortnight or once a month, or even not at all. I personally don't see any reason to believe God requires it every week, nor that it is the only way to worship God, though I am aware this can be an unpopular view here in this particular community of Ship of Fools! It's something I've talked about in other threads here and am not really interested in a big debate right now, though others may be, and I wonder if it would go better in Purgatory. But to me, from my understanding of God and the Bible, church is the people (including retired people! Not sure why they were mentioned in particular as evidence of the pointlessness of paper crafts!
Well there is a further ‘proper church’ problem, and remember given what I’m about to write that I’ve said repeatedly that I’m fine with Messy Church where people want it, but this remains technically true…:
The Church of England has the Book of Common Prayer 1662, and it has Common Worship. Those are (in the former case) the Authorised, and (in the latter case) the authorised services,
In neither will you find Messy Church. So, in a strictly legalistic sense, if one is CofE… draw your own conclusions!
And that is merely ‘is this an authorised service?’ never mind ‘is this a Eucharist?’
See also ‘Cafe Church’
I think I’ve read somewhere that where they are offered they are to be offered ‘as well as’ authorised services, rather than instead. And I think - someone will correct me - that strictly speaking they (Messy Church and Cafe Church) *shouldn’t* be counted in the returns of annual number of church services for a buildings. Because legally they’re not services in the CofE.
Though as I say I may be wrong and even if right I suspect that’s a can of worms…
https://www.churchofengland.org/about/fresh-expressions-church-england
Presumably, anything included in this scheme is *authorised*.
Messy Church, of course, is not confined to the Church of England.