All Age Messy Church

There will be an All Age Messy Church held at Farnham Methodist Church on Saturday 19th November 2.00-4.00 pm. This is for all the congregations whatever your age to come and experience Messy Church and see what is involved.

What is Messy Church?

In her book "Messy Church" Lucy Moore states that her principles of Messy Church are:

What are we doing?

"Love came down at Christmas"

2.00- 2.15 Gathering and registering (list for fire purposes plus wall collage of named hand shapes in God's palm)

2.15-2.20 Welcome, explanation and health and safety information

2.20-3.20 Craft, reflection and fellowship

(tea and coffee served, reflective area in Fellowship room made accessible plus 6 craft activities - Christmas Cards, Angels, Wrapping paper, Donkey Dung, Cake decorating and Baubles)

3.20-3.40 Short accessible service in the church

3.40-4.00 Refreshments

Why are we doing it?

We are still hoping to employ a Youth and Children’s Worker in conjunction with the United Reformed Church and St. Andrew’s but this won’t happen until mid-2012 at the earliest. Messy Church can be an effective way of introducing families to an experience of the love of God in their lives. We are therefore taking the opportunity of Advent to have this one-off trial which will give us the experience of staging a Messy Church event. This should give us insight into the number of helpers needed, the sort of crafts that can realistically be provided, the costs involved, the effectiveness of simple advertising, how people new to the Church react.

How can you help?

The highest priority is to pray for the people who come – that they will not only enjoy the activity time together but the worship time as well. We do not just need volunteers to lead the crafts. It is also very important that we have people who are ready to talk informally about us and our faith and help in various practical ways. We hope as many of our members in this section will come, as it is also an excellent opportunity to get to know each other better in a creative and relaxed setting.

All Age Messy Church - 19th November 2011

Would any one come? It was 5 to 2pm and it did not look hopeful with Mum (Kathy Johnson) out on the street frantically waving a balloon in people’s faces! Lucky the waving paid off and by the time the service started, at 3:20 we had accumulated 64 people including helpers. It was a fantastic afternoon with a range of different Christmas crafts. The first table was Christmas card making which of course was run by Kathy Johnson. This was obviously popular as some people made 3-4 cards and there was a large range of ages making them including a very keen two year old. On the next table was bauble making run by Jane Foxwell who was very busy as she supplied all the food and helped organise the tree with Ann Pook for the reflective area. Next to Jane was Thea Foxwell, who stepped in at the last minute, and helped people, make the angels. They were one of the most popular activities and the messiest, the tinsel used for the halos was everywhere after! The next activity was the wrapping paper making run by me (Abi Johnson) and Sue Dawson however Sue was using paints and it looked a lot harder! My table was lonely for a while until Vida made one and then there was sudden rush at the end however Sue’s table was constantly busy and looked very fun! Over the other side of the room Jill Whittingham was helping people decorate cakes, which were very yummy! Heather Richards was making sweets (named Donkey Dung) with the children, which looked delicious. Ann Pook’s transformation of the fellowship room provided a quiet area which was used by many people throughout the afternoon. As well as this the Wimbushs were constantly serving tea, coffee and squash. There were several people also helping with many different jobs such as welcoming the people and serving the drinks. A mother of one of the children from the Girls’ Brigade said “glitter glues AND chocolate-my girls are in heaven!” so we must have been doing something right! At the end it was hard to get everyone to go so that we could clean up but eventually everyone had gone and most of the tinsel, glitter and chocolate had been scrubbed off the tables and the floor! It was a really great and successful afternoon where people made new friends and we had visitors from many different places like North Camp and Alton. At the end Kathy Johnson and Sue Dawson had already started talking about an Easter one!

Abi Johnson

21/11/11