Starting Your Messy Church (PDF Download)

Content

Everything you need to get your Messy Church going!

The bigger picture... What Messy Church is and isn't... Why the values?... Commitment needed... Checklist of starting strategies... Why the network?... Questions to ask... What to expect... Organising your team... Sustaining your Messy Church... Review questions

This resource is for churches who want to see what's involved in starting up a Messy Church, or who are ready to go ahead with one. It includes checklists, milestones, questions to ask a Messy Church you're visiting, review strategies and a resources section.

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Author info

Lucy Moore is BRF's Messy Church Team Leader, responsible for developing the work of Messy Church nationally and internationally. She continues to help lead Messy Church in her own church. Jane Leadbetter is part of the BRF Messy Church team. She has worked as a primary school teacher and was Children's Work Adviser in the Diocese of Liverpool for 12 years. She runs L19: Messy Church once a month.

• View other titles by Lucy Moore
• View other titles by Jane Leadbetter

Reviews

From The Good Bookstall - 30 April 2012

This is a slim volume of 55 pages (sales help fund the Messy Church ministry) introducing this popular Fresh Expression of church to those considering starting a Messy Church in their community. It sets out to be 'short, punchy and easily passed round a team' and it fulfils this aim well. Providing help to think through whether or not this is for your church, it counsels not rushing into starting a Messy Church. 'What matters is that your want to help families meet Jesus' this is not just for children, but a form of church for children and adults that involves creativity, celebration and hospitality. The big picture to hold in mind is that it is all about making disciples.

Support from the whole church is needed, along with commitment from the leadership and prayer, and there is also good advice in seeking out the 'unlikely' people to be involved. It stresses that this is a team ministry and all will need to be prepared for hard work. Messy Church once a month is the normal pattern giving time for preparation and reflection between the sessions. The availability of help, encouragement and resources from the wider Messy Church network through people, books and online support is also covered.

Review by Margaret Brasier, Beeston, Nottingham

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From The Church Times - 17 February 2012

MESSY CHURCH, say Lucy Moore and Jane Leadbetter, is not a children's church, nor a way of attracting more people to a church's existing services. It is, they explain in Starting Your Messy Church: A beginner's guide for churches, a form of church for children and adults which involves creativity, celebration, and hospitality. It meets at a time and sometimes in a place that suit people who don't belong to a church.

'The way you go about making disciples may involve horrifying amounts of icing sugar and glitter glue,' they say - but making disciples is what it's all about. The aim is 'to introduce Jesus through hospitality, friendship, stories, and worship'.

Lucy Moore is the Bible Reading Fellowship's Messy Church Team Leader, and her co-author is a member of the team. Their small book is jolly, encouraging, and full of good and detailed advice for those interested in this kind of wor ship.

Book details

• ISBN: 9780857460547Z
• Published: 20 January 2012
• Status:
• Format: PDF Download
• Pages: 64