Jenny Board and Curtis, a teenager on her Messy Church team, were discussing how teenagers and Messy Church might work even better. Jenny kindly sent me this summary of their conversation:
We discussed the possibility of the youngsters staying on after Messy Church, but recognised problems: parents, having gone home, wouldn’t be too keen to turn out again. Messy Church helpers would be too tired to give of their best.
We thought a way forward might be to invite a group of 11 youngsters to sit down together and discuss what they might like to do for 45 minutes at the beginning of each Messy Church. They could gather around a chocolate fountain – remember, Curtis likes chocolate! Each member of the group would be given three marshmallows (or pieces of fruit) and cocktail sticks. If they want to dip one into the chocolate and eat it, they had to come up with an idea of what they could do as a group. Similarly, once they had eaten all three chocolate-covered items, they couldn’t speak until all others had eaten theirs.
At Messy Church, they would gather in a meeting room for, say, 45 minutes, to do their chosen ‘thing’. Afterwards they could join in the normal craft session if they wanted to, perhaps helping younger children. From then they would join in the worship session, maybe contributing to it if the 45 minute activity was suitable – drama – craft – painting… whatever is ‘sick’. I gather this is the new word for ‘cool’, (which now is not cool!) – but don’t quote me, I may have misunderstood.
Could we support this? Well, I suppose it depends on what ideas they come up with around the chocolate fountain.
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