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Messy Church
Messy Church
Aims to create the opportunity for people to have fun together and enjoy the experience of being part of the extended church family through a range of craft activities, storytelling, worship and simple homemade meals. Based on two-hour sessions for people of all ages, this book includes ten theme-related craft activities, and more.
210 pages, Paperback
First published November 17, 2006
15 people are currently reading
29 people want to read
About the author
Lucy Moore
51 books1 followerLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 3, 2019
This book is divided into two parts.
Part One is about how to make church more approachable to people who are not engaged and involved in traditional church settings. I actually really enjoyed this part of the book and found it to be useful. Readers are probably not going to agree with 100% of their ideas for engaging the unchurched, but it is a good start for discussion.
Part Two of the book is a collection of activity ideas for a messy church. I really did not enjoy this part of the book at all. To me, most of the ideas seem like something that anyone could come up with even without reading the book (like making angel shaped food items). Other items didn't seem related to church at all (like traffic light shaped food items and teachings on traffic safety). I suppose that if you were running a children's ministry exclusively that this part of the book might have been useful. However, there are many people in the world today who feel alienated from the mainstream church and would benefit from a 'messy church' who probably are not interested in making child based art and food decorations.
Part One is about how to make church more approachable to people who are not engaged and involved in traditional church settings. I actually really enjoyed this part of the book and found it to be useful. Readers are probably not going to agree with 100% of their ideas for engaging the unchurched, but it is a good start for discussion.
Part Two of the book is a collection of activity ideas for a messy church. I really did not enjoy this part of the book at all. To me, most of the ideas seem like something that anyone could come up with even without reading the book (like making angel shaped food items). Other items didn't seem related to church at all (like traffic light shaped food items and teachings on traffic safety). I suppose that if you were running a children's ministry exclusively that this part of the book might have been useful. However, there are many people in the world today who feel alienated from the mainstream church and would benefit from a 'messy church' who probably are not interested in making child based art and food decorations.
January 5, 2018
I want to buy one of these for everyone on my team! not just good ideas, but also the background for the purpose and values of messy church.
June 21, 2018
easy read, love the resources that are more than half the book!!
October 18, 2012
The first 70 pages are a basic introduction to the concept, theology and practice of messy church - I found it helpful in coming up-to-speed, I think it'll be helpful again to be reminded of 'why we're doing this' in the future.
The sample sessions are also helpful, both as a resource to use or launch from, as well as giving an idea of the sort of thing the originators of messy church have in mind for a two-hour gathering. The 'talk' sections of these seem pretty light, although experience shows it's very difficult to keep the attention of a toddler-to-granny audience.
The sample sessions are also helpful, both as a resource to use or launch from, as well as giving an idea of the sort of thing the originators of messy church have in mind for a two-hour gathering. The 'talk' sections of these seem pretty light, although experience shows it's very difficult to keep the attention of a toddler-to-granny audience.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews