Back in February 2024, Church of England kindly sponsored a survey, completed by 330 Messy Church leaders. This is what we found out:
- Messy Church is very successful in attracting young families.
- For 55% of attendees, Messy Church is their only church.
- Attendees are mainly non-churched.
- 62% of Messy Churches in this survey were Church of England.
- Operates in relatively small churches with only 13% in churches of 100+.
- Operates in all geographical areas but predominantly in small towns and rural areas.
- Average size is 42.
- Messy Church can easily double the size of a small church.
- 42% report they are growing (40% staying the same size, only 5% declining).
All such brilliant news!
However, a key area of investigation was around numbers of young people in Messy Church. Our challenging news, considering Messy Church has ‘for all ages’ as a core value, is that there are few young people in Messy Churches. In those that responded to the survey, half have none and 20% have one or two 12-16s. Young people are more likely to be retained in larger churches, with larger Messy Churches, where more Sunday churchgoers also attend a Messy Church. Teenagers are more likely to stop attending smaller churches, in rural areas, where there are fewer churchgoers in the Messy Church. These are uncomfortable findings.
Recommendations from 9Dot Research, who analysed the data, encourage Messy Churches to continue being successful at what Messy Church does best, whilst being more intentional with faith nurture and discipleship of children and young people both within and outside of Messy Church gatherings. This includes making sure children have friends to grow in faith with and to plan for the child as they grow both physically and spiritually. We need to make faith relevant to young people and work with their parents, and where possible, keep in touch with families that leave but remain in the local community.
We spent the Summer analysing the open-ended questions on what encourages young people to continue in Messy Church, as the survey budget did not include analysing this section. It’s taken us a while, and the most common way that Messy Churches have used to connect with children as they grow, is to involve them in planning and leading sessions. Whilst this strategy has worked for some, it’s clearly not enough to continue to engage the majority of young people that have grown through Messy Church.
As a response to this missional challenge, we have submitted a funding application to the Church of England vision and strategy team, applying for funding to run a project involving a period of innovation to discern, design and develop 5-6 approaches to continue to engage 12–16-year-olds that have grown through Messy Church. We then hope to pilot these approaches with 25-30 Messy Churches over a two-year period, with the support of a researcher and through expanding our team. Would your Messy Church like to be involved?
This is an exciting development for the Messy Church movement; however, the project can only go ahead with funding. We invite you to pray ‘Your Kingdom come and your will be done’ for this area of work, as the board consider our application and make their decision on 31st October.
Aike Kennett-Brown
BRF Messy Church Ministry Lead
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