MESSY CHURCH

The first Messy Church began in 2004 when a group at St Wilfrid’s in Cowplain near Portsmouth were frustrated because, as a church, they were hardly reaching any children with God’s story.

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They felt they had lovely buildings and facilities but weren’t using them enough. They had creative people in the church, and the area needed as much community-building as possible, being a rather featureless suburb.There was a lot of sympathy towards church in general but the church wasn’t offering anything that really gripped the imagination of local families.

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They decided very early on to try to do something for all ages together, partly out of a belief that we grow best as a church when we walk the journey with as many different people as possible, and partly from a desire to help families to grow together in their walk of faith, and and not see Christianity as something you grow out of when you’re 11.

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Messy Church is a form of church for children and adults that involves creativity, celebration and hospitality – primarily for people who don’t already belong to another form of church. It’s all-age, it’s fun and it’s  for people at all stages of their faith journey and of any age – a congregation that is as valuable and worthy of investment as any of your other congregations.

Messy church models and promotes good ways of growing as a family: a nuclear family, an extended family, and a global and local church family, its aim is to introduce Jesus, to give an opportunity to encounter him and to grow closer to him.

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