Get Messy! is a new four-monthly subscription resource for Messy Church leaders. Each issue contains four session outlines (one per month), including planning sheets and take-home handouts, together with information on the latest resources and events. It also seeks to encourage and refresh Messy Church leaders by providing monthly Bible studies, a column on taking time to recharge, and a problem page. Other features include a youth column, a day in the life of a Regional Coordinator and stories from Messy Churches around the world.
In this issue
- Lucy Moore introduces the new resource
- Martyn Payne says ‘What a welcome!’
- Four complete session plans with templates
- Messy Readings
- Stories from Messy Churches far and wide
- … and much more
Technical details
ISBN 9780857462589
Price £4.00 per issue, subscriptions available
Published 1 March 2013
Pages 36
Find out about subscribing as a group and view available back issues at BRFonline.
Support Material
The following extra resources are available to download for this issue of Get Messy!
About the session writers in this issue
Eleanor Williams is Vicar of Burwell with Reach, two villages 10 miles from Cambridge. In 2008 she started a Messy Church in Milton, near Cambridge, and was a Messy Church Regional Coordinator for two years. Eleanor lives with her husband (also a vicar), two teenage sons and two dogs, so life is wonderfully messy!
John Rowlandson was born and lives in Liverpool, is a Reader in the Church of England and works part-time in a primary school. He and his wife Sylvia help with their local Messy Church: L19. He enjoys writing poetry, painting and encouraging maximum lunacy and fun among children.
Sharon Lakin lives in Worthing, West Sussex with her husband and two young children. She is the Children and Families Worker at the River of Life Church, which has been running Messy Church since 2008. She is both nervous and excited to be starting a teaching degree in September 2013.
Kim Gabbatiss is a Children and Families Worker for the Methodist Church in York, working alongside local communities in a number of villages and two small towns. She is passionate about Messy Church and enjoys the privilege of leading a Messy Church in her home church and supporting others as a Regional Coordinator around Yorkshire.
Reviews
From Country Way – June to September 2013
Messy Church is growing. Over the past two years, Country Way has included articles about the increasing numbers of rural churches using Messy Church’s innovative and helpful resources. Growth has prompted a new development, to meet the needs of the large numbers of messy churches requiring regular material, ideas and help to maintain their mission and continue to be relevant and attractive.
This is Get Messy! – a magazine produced three times per year giving all sorts of ideas and information for those running a monthly Messy Church. The first issue (May-August 2013) has recently been published, and churches or individuals can subscribe to either printed or online versions. Like much else from the same stable, it is supported by additional material that is available from websites.
Each issue contains key resources for four monthly sessions: activities, readings, learning content, guidance for celebration and shared meal ideas. The themes here are: invisible God, the missionary Amy Carmichael, calming the storm and Zacchaeus. The quality of the material is equally as good as all the previously-published books and resources. In addition, each issue will contain stories from messy churches in the network, news and events, readers’ questions answered, reflections, and discussion of key aspects of the Messy Church approach (e.g. in this issue hospitality and exploring faith at home).
I heartily recommend this additional tool for hard-pressed rural churches who still wish to engage appropriately in mission in the communities they serve.
Reviewed by Simon Martin
