Messy Church at Nic's
Busy families at tables making, sticking, colouring, gluing glitter….happy families celebrating God together…hungry families eating delicious food, chatting and getting to know one another…that’s Messy Church at St. Nic’s! Why ‘Messy Church’ you might ask (and indeed as one member of the St. Nic’s Sunday congregation said to me “urgh, ‘messy’ puts me right off”). Well, it’s messy because there are lots of crafts around a set theme (that link with the worship) for families to do together. It’s messy because we all eat together and with small children around…well you know! It’s also messy because it’s not always clear what is going to happen. We may have a plan for a session but as we’ve already discovered we need to go with the flow. A plan is easily hijacked by a child asking a question during the story time - and actually we welcome that. It’s also messy because we hope that makes it easy to come along, letting go a bit is part of the draw! It’s the opposite of tidy so maybe that makes it just a little easier to join in. So don't let messy put you right off!
Messy Church happens at the Youth Centre on the second Sunday of the month from 4pm-5.30pm and we are learning a lot as well as having a great deal of fun! A number of families who don’t attend any church have come along and we hope they will continue to be part of the Messy Congregation (and that more will join us.)
As with any new venture there is a lot of ‘feeling our way’ and feeling inadequate to the task so we value your support and prayer immensely. We hope that Messy Church will continue to thrive and grow and that those that come will begin to develop a real sense of community and belonging together. We hope that that families will begin to learn to worship together, even those who, at the moment, don’t understand quite what that means. We hope most of all that it will become a place where the love of Jesus is demonstrated and people can begin to explore what following him is all about.
Our next Messy Church takes place on January 8th 2012 in the Youth Centre - the theme is (not surprisingly perhaps) ‘Happy New Year’ when we will be thinking about all things new! If you are intrigued and if you would like to know more, to be involved or to come along please contact the church office or speak to Kate Ross or Kate Macpherson. Catch us in church or church members can contact us via the blog email (log in for details).