Since the original Messy Church got off the ground at Cowplain, Portsmouth, in 2004, founder Lucy Moore has seen huge growth in this model of fresh expression of church. She describes what has happened in the past six years.
God has gone before us all the time and got us ready to go on safari without a map.
It has been quite a journey but looking back, we can see that God had already put in place many elements for Messy Church long before we started. They were:
- A sense of frustration with the traditional way of doing children's work in church because a group of us found that we were failing in that. It was also frustrating that we heavily invested in that children’s work but it seemed to be in isolation as parents didn't appear to be supporting those children by encouraging them at home in their faith;
- A lot of people who were good at artwork and crafts. We found that God had provided a creative team of people who were passionate about children's work and confident in dealing with children;
- Our church, St Wilfrid's. This was a very important factor because it has a great sense of being hospitable and looking outwards rather than inwards. It also had a very useful building that offered all the facilities required to get something going;
- A small group of four or five children coming on a Sunday. They gave us an inroad into the local schools and it was from those children that we built up our first invitations to Messy Church.
It has become increasingly apparent over the years that families face meltdown in our society and they need more support and help than ever before. In saying that, there was still an element of panic among our group at the prospect of doing children's work in the current climate, facing issues such as CRB checks, discipline, health and safety, and so on.
So what has shaped Messy Church so far?
- Generosity. Our church has been very hospitable and also generous in saying Bible Reading Fellowship (BRF) could take on the Messy Church model and take it out to the wider church. Messy Church has since become a core part of BRF's children’s ministry, Barnabas, which assists churches who have caught the vision and need help in running Messy Church;
- BRF itself. The team that I work with are very supportive and generous;
- The funders
- Fresh Expressions. They have shared their wisdom, their help, their time, their website. Various individuals have also made a huge difference, including Bishop Graham Cray, Bishop Steven Croft, and George Lings;
- The growing Messy Church team of regional co-ordinators;
- My family.
There has been a lot of growth; I still feel we are on this surfboard and we are riding a wave of energy. We now have about 330 Messy Churches registered on the website from all sorts of denominations.
In terms of attendances at individual Messy Churches they can range from 15-20 to 180. The variety of contexts include Anglican, Methodist and Assemblies of God, urban, rural, north, south, east, and west. This gives us huge breadth.
There is now geographical spread all over the world with the Canadians taking on Messy Church wholeheartedly. Also going great guns are Australia, South Africa, Finland, Germany, and New Zealand.
Thanks to the increasing number of regional co-ordinators, we can also have a more localised output. There is a growing depth of experience and ideas; growing ownership by church structures; and growing numbers of stories of transformation. The challenge, as ever, to go just a little bit deeper with people and help them explore discipleship. On with the journey…
Surf culture is part of the regional identity in Cornwall, and as such it is a hugely influential part of the lives of people who live in this peninsular county, both surfers and non-surfers. Everybody is related to, knows, or aspires to be, a surfer. As a result, in using all its resources to wholeheartedly serve a local surf culture, Tubestation has also served and influenced a wide cross section of the Cornish community.
A Christian faith community has formed of young and old, surfer and non-surfer, local and visitor. This community comes together each Sunday, and during school holidays it can often swell far beyond the capacity of the Polzeath premises, with visitors making up 80% of the numbers served by a core local congregation of 40-50.This gives the meetings a unique dynamic.
The 'church' experience here has actually developed at a far steadier pace than it could have done because we took the decision early on to work with the established Methodist Church 'plan', rather than go for something completely separate from the outset. This has made for slow progress in many respects, but ultimately has been the right decision because it has lead to a diverse church (all-age, not just surfers) which the Methodist Church can still feel ownership of. In future we may decide to do this differently for the sake of efficiency, as pulling the 'traditional' along with us has been pretty tough going.
As part of this we invested in an indoor mini-ramp for skaters, it's just over a metre high, about three metres wide, and over six metres long. The Tubestation ramp is available to hire from Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm. If you are a resident of north Cornwall, there is no charge to use it, otherwise it costs £2.50 for the day.
The principles that underpin Tubestation are really nothing special and can be applied to any Christian community that wants to love and serve its neighbours. Lots of people visit Tubestation expecting to find something earth-shattering and what they actually find is a bunch of ordinary bods simply using what we have to serve the people around us, and having fun doing it. The only earth-shattering thing about it is that Jesus reminded us to 'love our neighbour' – and that is revolutionary!
Tubestation is run by project directors and keen surfers, Henry Cavender and Kris Lannen. Henry says,
The first summer was busy catering for surfers and tourists, but the winter is still seeing visitors to tubestation, locals coming in for coffee, young people using the skate ramp, taking advantage of what tubestation is offering: 'a generous space which reflects God'.
A close relationship has also developed with the cathedral and that relationship can be seen in a number of ways. During Liverpool's year as European Capital of Culture in 2008, we set up a small installation in the cathedral where people had an opportunity to reflect and, if they wanted, leave their email address and contact details. Several hundred people did that during the year. This was a sign that people were connecting with us in some way, and wanted to do so again in that incredible building and in other places too.
Dream has also instigated guerrilla worship on several occasions. It's about taking simple, creative, genuine acts of worship out of the church box and into the 'marketplace'. These have been great fun; the first held in the Liverpool One shopping centre and another on the beach at Crosby where we had a labyrinth near Antony Gormley's iron men installation. Both have had thousands of hits on YouTube.
Three of the highlights of the past year have been:
All forms of church face the challenge of remaining missional. Richard says