Making your church “messy” might not sound appealing but you should think twice, says the Rev Sue Fenton.
“The concept doesn’t get its name from encouraging people to tip over the pews; Messy Church is about creating an alternative congregation to the Sunday service, one that has permission to be messy and not perfect.”
The evening gathering, which includes a shared meal, has a structure and pattern but lets both adults and children express their creativity through craft.
“We experience worship and we sing action songs to CDs. There are no sermons; instead we have teachings from the themes in the Messy Church books, stories from the Bible that we make relevant to today, and contemporary prayer. The evening is interactive and highly adaptable, and suitable for children with disabilities.”
“There are plenty of messy families in the Bible and we need to show that God works with that too. One way is to create a service that fits families, not the other way around.”
Sue, who has a degree in sociology, is employed part-time as the pioneer mission ministry coordinator for Wellington Presbytery’s 31 churches. For most of the past year, she has also worked one day a week on a Messy Church pilot programme at St Mark’s in Lower Hutt (which is part of Hutt City Uniting Congregations).
Sue says the pilot was sparked by her work with the Rev John Turton, an HCUC minister, who had offered Sue a part-time role as a youth educator. But Sue saw a problem; St Mark’s had no youth.
With help from John and the St Marks’ congregation, Sue carried out research that revealed “the church was disconnected from the community”. Thirty mainly older people attended the weekly Sunday service, and although there were some interested families they were not coming along regularly.
At the same time, Sue had been studying the United Kingdom book Messy Church with the Wellington Presbytery book club. It describes a model developed by
St Wilfred’s Anglican Church that she and John felt would be a good fit for St Mark’s - and potentially for other churches in Wellington Presbytery.
“Thanks to generous funding from the Presbyterian Foundation, the Messy Church pilot programme has been running for almost a year. In December we will reapply for funding as we now have other churches in the presbytery keen to give it a go. We are also thinking of ways we can develop it regionally.”
Messy Church appeals to families and people of all ages, Sue says. “We see families come along who have connections to St Mark’s but did not want to go to church as there was nothing for the children to do.”
She says these families may never want to go to a Sunday morning service: “Messy Church should not be seen as a stepping stone. It’s a new congregation within the parish. It’s a way for the church to respond to the community and what it wants, so that people do not have to fit into a style of service that does not fit them.”
Messy Church sits alongside Kids Friendly in a complementary way, Sue says, because both are about welcoming families.
About 55-60 people attend Messy Church at St Mark’s each month, but Sue says it isn’t just about the numbers. “It’s about families coming back to the church through this service, and about building relationships with new families.”
Also exciting to see, Sue says, is how well the pilot scheme has worked at catching the imagination of other churches. “We are getting groups from other churches coming along to watch our service, and we now have two more churches in the presbytery wanting to start their own Messy Church.”
* If you want to find out more, check out Messy Church and Messy Church 2 by Lucy Moore, available from Whitcoulls, Epworth Books and Mana book stores, or see the website www.messychurch.org.uk. A Messy Church conference is being held in Christchurch from 18-19 September – check out www.theologyhouse.ac.nz for more information.
By Angela Singer