Comments on: These churches may be messy, but they’re organized around Christ

By: Mark Hird-Rutter

Mark Hird-Rutter — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 16:59:15 +0000

My wife and I were blessed to be able to attend the conference. We’ve been involved in Messy Church for about 8 years now. Messy Church does reach out to people in Sunday Morning Church, to those who have left Church for whatever reason and to those who know nothing about Christ. We have seen changes in peoples lives as they start to become involved and learn about Christianity. The conference was great fun and encouraged new ways of story telling. I appreciate this article because it clearly outlined the values of Messy Church and reflected some of the issues that we, as Messy Church Coordinators face while running our Messy Churches.
Thank you Joelle.

By: Andrea Harwood-Jones

Andrea Harwood-Jones — Fri, 03 Nov 2017 02:38:45 +0000

My parish apparently has the largest Messy Church in western Canada. It’s a great program. But let’s not be coy about what is happening at Messy Church. Yes, the lessons and message are absolutely Christian, and some families and children are being exposed to the Christian message in a new and refreshing way. But being Christ-centered also means that the attendees eventually need to move beyond receiving the ministry of others to seeing themselves as the givers, seeing themselves as the church.. While I am hopeful, the jury is still out on whether Messy Church can help people make that step in the discipleship journey. Some of our Messy Church families have been able to make that step. It also needs mentioning that many already have churches that they worship at on Sundays, and Messy Church is a bonus night for their families. Since our committed Messy Church volunteers all come from the regular Sunday services, as do most of our Food Box and Soup Kitchen volunteers, there is clearly something transformative about weekly worship with which once a month attendance cannot compete. In the wider community, scratch a community service organization in our town and you will most likely find a member of our congregation, a member who generally attends every single Sunday. There is no need to wrap Messy Church in an ideological blanket in order to highlight its value. The Anglican Journal should know this.

By: Tony Houghton

Tony Houghton — Thu, 02 Nov 2017 21:07:53 +0000

“threw out the old rules” ? What rules?