Ten years ago, Lucy Moore and the team at St Wilfrid’s, on the outskirts of Portsmouth, launched an experimental form of church. No one, least of all Lucy and her husband Paul, ever imagined what would happen next. Increasing numbers of churches, who were facing declining numbers in their Sunday Schools and at their family services, were intrigued by this new shape of church. The simple mix of hospitality, creativity, celebration and a meal for all ages together proved to be a pattern that even the smallest churches felt they could emulate. Now Messy Churches - facilitated and resourced by BRF, the Bible Reading Fellowship - can be found in many different contexts, from medieval Anglican buildings among rural communities through to purposebuilt church halls in the suburbs; from small church plants on housing estates to village halls and schools up and down the country. On average two new registrations a day are coming in to the Messy Church website and the ubiquitous messy splat has become well-known, not just among Christians. There have been Messy Church features on TV and radio, and church leaders in all denominations have been both surprised and delighted to see how the Church’s confidence to do mission has grown dramatically through this simple but effective re-imagination of how we ‘do church’.
Messy Churches have sprung up for a variety of reasons and with differing motives. For some it was a last ditch attempt to bring children back into church, for others it was an alternative to a failing Sunday School and for many more, it was seen as a way to attract young families into the Sunday worshipping community. Although none of these motives are without some merit, Messy Church was always conceived as being something more fundamentally revolutionary than just this: whether they realised it or not, messy leaders were embarking on a whole new way of being church in this age. Messy Church at its best is a new intergenerational, missional expression of church with very messy boundaries; a church that is less concerned about who is ‘in’ or who is ‘out’ but one that is intentionally outward-looking, ready both to nurture and to evangelise at the same time. In fact those who are passing on the gospel through Messy Church are being discipled by this very service to the community, as they are challenged to show love in practical action and explain their story in a language that makes sense to ‘guests’ from a very secular Britain.
In all of this, the most interesting and significant element of Messy Church has been its insistence that it should be an all-age church community. This intergenerational style of church has come at a time when many leading thinkers in children’s ministry are departing from the received wisdom that children need to be nurtured separately in the faith, away from the adult congregation. This may have been appropriate in its time but the evidence over the last 50 years has pointed to the fact that the separation of children and adults, when it comes to learning and worship, has meant that children and young people have become both disconnected from the Church and have left it in ever-increasing numbers. Insights from movements such as ‘Sticky faith’, and the writings of John Westerhoff about intergenerational households of faith, find a home in Messy Church. Passing on our faith from one generation to another needs this sort of context. Just as within the Jewish tradition the extended family comes together around the Sabbath meal or during the great festival times when they remember how God rescued and protected his people throughout history, adults and children are encouraged to mix around the activities, during the celebration and across the meal table at Messy Church.
Messy Church is not just for children. One of the reasons why it has been so successful is that it has allowed adults and young people to have a voice and a contribution in the work of mission. A missional church is a healthy church, and a disciple-making church will always need to remain missional. Messy Church is held together not by a particular template of how to do it, but rather a set of robust values that keep it fresh and healthy. Messy Church practises a radical hospitality that can welcome not just young adults with children but also single adults who can be encouraged to find a home within this ‘church without walls’ that is ready to welcome the stranger as well as walk alongside those who are setting out on a journey of faith.
Messy Church is distinctive as it calls itself Church - not just an activity, event, or seasonal special
Ten years on…
As it’s the ten-year anniversary of Messy Church, perhaps it’s time to ask some serious questions. The BRF Messy Church team, of which I am a part, is the first to admit that we do not have all the answers. We do not claim to offer a neat, pre-packaged and thoroughly thought through movement in mission for the Church. We are constantly surprised by where God’s spirit is taking us and those churches we’re trying to support. But there are questions that we, as a team, are grappling with, around the identity and future of Messy Church. For example: is this just another of the latest fads to hit children’s work, or is something more fundamental taking place for churches and for our ministry among children? What is Messy Church saying to us about how we work with children in the 21st Century? What are the implications of the growth of Messy Church for our work on Sunday? Is Messy Church really church and, if it is, how can children come to and grow in faith in this all-age context?
In many ways, what goes on in a Messy Church is nothing new. We’ve had activity days for families before, with special events built around crafts, a Bible story-time, games and food. Some of you reading this article will have run such days frequently in the course of your ministry and indeed are probably still doing so. What however makes Messy Church distinctive in this field is the very fact that it calls itself church and not just an activity, an event or a seasonal special. This is a daring claim! Of course, there are those Messy Churches who meet only infrequently and so are indeed still just ‘an event’, but this was never how it was conceived, nor how it has developed most successfully. Messy Church can be the place where people experience God, hear about Jesus and grow in their faith in exactly the same way as we would expect from other church services. In other words, Messy Church is a service of worship in its own right, and a distinct congregation from whichever ‘parent church’ its leadership team is drawn. This is a challenging concept for some and certainly within some traditions it would be a bridge too far.
This opens up important conversations about the definition of church. So what might make Messy Church ‘church’? Might I suggest the following: the fact that it practises generous hospitality around the stories of God, that it is a community trying to love God and one another, that it is a community serving one another that meets around a ‘sacramental’ meal, that it is a community of those sharing faith together - a community of all ages, equally valued and involved and that it is an intentional, faith-sharing community that is prepared to learn with and from children in its midst. It may be a slow disciple-making process, because we are starting with at least two generations of adults and children who have never heard our Christian story and have no foundations to build on, but nevertheless it is a discipleship journey both for those who come to Messy Church and those who are on the team. People are moving from a place of suspicion and fear when it comes to the Christian faith, to a place of recognition that God is at work today in the lives of ordinary people - people, who have had their lives turned upside-down by an encounter with Jesus Christ.
There are also questions around the leadership of Messy Churches, and how we can equip people for the task of spearheading these local expressions of church. In the Church of England’s From anecdote to evidence report last year, which surveyed a range of fresh expressions of church, it was noted that most Messy Churches are led by lay leaders who have had no training at all. How does this square with our present models of forming Christian leaders? Messy Church teams may be made up of people with passion, and indeed they often bring to their role leadership skills from other walks of life, but are these enough? It can often seem as if they are working out their theology as they go, as Messy Church opens up new thinking about discipleship, mission, training and the nature and purpose of church. Can that be acceptable?
Ten years in the future…
So where will Messy Church be in ten years’ time? Well, what has happened so far has taught us in the BRF Messy Church team not to make predictions! Who knows where God will take this movement. If, at the very least, it means there will be a generation in the future who are more open to the things of God and to hear of God’s love, then that is surely a good thing. If it means that there will be children who, as adults in the future, will have memories of a church that was fun and welcoming and real, then that is something to be celebrated. And the fact that many are starting a journey of faith now through Messy Church that blesses their lives and makes them a blessing to others makes it worthwhile.
Messy Church is proud to be called ‘messy’, because God specialises in welcoming those who realise their lives are messy and also because it reminds us that people’s journeys of faith are messy, particularly in our post-Christian western culture. Messy Church so far has been a great adventure and has sown seeds and changed mindsets. In hindsight, it may well have helped the Church to turn a corner in the face of the prevailing mood of gloom and despair about its future that sadly has marked these last 30 years or so in our country. May God continue to ‘bless this mess’ and use it to grow his kingdom in our land!
Martyn Payne is part of the BRF Messy Church team, working alongside Lucy Moore and Jane Leadbetter. His role has been to visit Messy Churches around the UK, offering encouragement and support, and networking those churches as they tackle shared issues about the development and future of Messy Church: messychurch.org.uk
