Christ the King, Combined Locks Digs in and gets messy!
The following blog post was contributed by Denise Barnaal of Christ the King, Combined Locks.
Christ the King received a curiosity grant from the Doing a New Thing Fund for a group of lay leaders to attend an online Messy Church training — This is another example of your mission support dollars at work, ECSW!
"Our team of 6 is made up of people from 3 different area churches {Prince of Peace and Our Saviour’s, Appleton}. Our hope is that we can reach those in our community who find it hard to get to regular Sunday services, those who do not attend church because they have been hurt by their church experiences and those who have not had the opportunity to hear, see and learn about faith since they have not been a part of a church community. We feel that many people, both those who attend and those who help create the session, could benefit from this kind of worship.
We attended 3 online sessions detailing how to build Messy Church experiences. Messy Church is an intergenerational, active time of exploring fun, faith and fellowship in a safe and relaxed setting (with food!).
Session 1: We heard about the 5 foundational values of Messy Church: Creativity, Hospitality, Intergenerational, Christ centered and Celebratory. We also discussed the 4 key components of each Messy Church time: Welcome, Activities, Celebration Time and the Meal.
Session 2: In Session two, we talked about what the building blocks of Messy Church add up to including a liturgy for all age worship, a welcoming space to experience Christian community, a space to explore the way of Christ and an apprenticeship approach to discipleship. We also experienced a mini-messy church which centered around the theme of Rooted, Built Up and Growing. We did two activities: creating a paper bag tree and a tiny scavenger hunt that connected with the verse Colossians 2:6-7
“Live your lives in Christ Jesus the Lord in the same way as you received him. Be rooted and built up in the way of Jesus, established in the faith as you are taught, overflowing in thanksgiving.” (NRSV, adapted)
Session 3: Our final session involved finding out how to build and finance Messy Church and how to find volunteers. We also had some time to reflect, ask questions and talk about good times to jump in and do your first MC session. Lots of practical tips and suggestions in this session from those who have been doing Messy Church for many years.
Moving forward: We will be meeting in early December to pray, brainstorm and plan. We may choose to collaborate on having one Messy Church time that we build together in a space in a community center, or may decide to use one (or more) of our church buildings. It will be so fun and exciting to work and play together in building this Fresh Expression of church.
We learned so much about Messy Church in this process and found out that it’s not just for kids, not intended to fix attendance problems, and is totally different from VBS. It’s intended to help people see how God’s love is for them and how acting with God’s love in mind really helps you see yourself and others with a kinder, more accepting mind and heart-set.
Receiving this grant money, along with another grant from Seibert Fresh Expressions, has allowed us to invite team members to collaborate with us that had been interested in Messy Church for a while. We were able to share our blessings with them and will also have some funds to help pay for our first Messy Church. The grant will also help us provide a safe and inclusive space for anyone to come and feel welcome, loved, safe and valued as a member of our community. We hope that how we model, talk about and share God’s love in a Messy Church environment might encourage others to do the same, building a sense of community, care for each other, and interconnectedness.
Community, justice and love!!”