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Messy Church

Ideal for all ages?

From humble beginnings in 2004, something called Messy Church at a parish church near Portsmouth, has become the most numerous and best supported fresh expression of Church, with over 300 recorded examples as of April 2010. It has travelled across and beyond the British Isles, as well as being taken up by different denominations. There are now Messy Church books, regular training days known as Messy Fiestas, a popular website, and dozens of Regional Co-ordinators and consultants.

It was inevitable, therefore, that George Lings of Church Army's research unit, The Sheffield Centre, would want to cast his analytic eye over all things Messy Church. He has done just that with the latest issue of quarterly publication, Encounters on the Edge. He spent time with the founder, Lucy Moore, and experienced firsthand a Messy Church in the suburbs of Liverpool which is attended by more than 140 people and has 40 helpers.

He asks: 'Messy Church is clearly popular and fun - but are those very qualities praise or problems? Does it have serious values beneath the cheerful bubbly image? Is there such a thing as "pure" Messy Church? Are there values deeper than the shape and can they be contextualised without making compromises on the purity? What are the patterns nationally, and why might it be that it attracts so many non-churched people?'

He also questions if Messy Church is really all age, but concludes that 'something apparently as simple as Messy Church turns out to be a far deeper and complex reality'. Thus Messy Church is changing our idea of Church for the better.

The Messy Church website: http://www.messychurch.org.uk/