Messy Church In Carpenders Park & South Oxhey
Members of four churches:(All Saints Church of England, Carpenders Park Free
Church,
The Baptist Church and the Methodist Church) have joined together to form a new Messy
Church. We meet on the 3rd Sunday of each month for two and a half hours in the
afternoon.
The Fresh Expressions seminar in 2008 sowed the seed. After reading Lucy Moore’s book and visiting Berry Lane Creative Church and Abbots Langley Messy Church we were inspired to start our own. We meet on a Sunday because the majority of our helpers work from Monday to Friday. Messy Church starts with tea and coffee for the adults while the children (and adults) play with a variety of games. Once everyone has arrived a leader announces the theme for the day and describes the craft activities. An hour later a procession of excited children go into the church, eager to show what they have been doing. Worship is based round the children’s activities and we will never forget the day all the animals in the ark escaped into the ‘sea’. Fortunately they all lived to tell the tale. Finally we sing “Happy Birthday” to all with a birthday that month and then have supper together. Six o’clock is supposed to be the going home time, but usually everybody is still enjoying the fun and fellowship. We are devising strategies to draw the proceedings to a halt so that the cleaning, washing up and putting away can be undertaken!
Our Messy Church started in September 2009 and we are grateful to Three Rivers District Council for a grant of £1,000 which has enabled us to buy tables, water jugs and mugs, china plates and bowls, large stock pots and other kitchen essentials, games, and fantastic craft materials. In April photographs were taken to illustrate an article for the July edition of the Three Rivers Times.
Numbers have steadily grown and each month well over forty children, parent/carers
and helpers are sitting down to tea. One mother has recently given birth to a baby
girl (not AT Messy Church!), so we can now claim that the Messy Church family comes
in “all kinds of colours, every shape and size … and all kinds of ages, nought to
ninety-
Contacts are
Jen Board 0208 428 6375
Linda Leaver 0208 421 1542
Paul Spiller 0208 428 3887