Messy Church continues to do well. Recently we have had numbers of 77 and 80 attendees, although our numbers where low for January (it was a particularly wet and windy day), we had 37 on that occasion.

Our recent themes include creation, the greatest party ever, and Christmas.

We have around 30 dedicated volunteers many of whom come each month. This is less than half the volunteers we had when we started and would always welcome new volunteers.

One great achievement is that since September two of our older attendees have actually become volunteers. This really is something to be pleased about.

  • Our Messy Church must be doing something good if they want to volunteer.
  • It is good for the children who attend to see older children volunteer and taking part.
  • Lucy Moore, who set up the Messy Church organisation, has said that getting teenagers, older attendees, to volunteer is one way to keep them within the church rather than drifting away.

The Messy Church core team meets regularly to coordinate themes and discuss any problems or concerns. As always we would ask you to pray for the work we are doing.

Messy Church Services.

Over the past couple of weeks we have taken Messy Church to our regular church services. This came out of the report that Matthew Vatcher presented to this council last year, when you asked us to present something on Messy to each of the churches.

So far we have been to Immanuel and Christ Church, we will be visiting Bath Road in a couple of weeks time. Both services have gone really well with the congregations happy to get involved with activities and songs, and I hope, learning a little bit more about Messy Church.

I would like to thank the churches for their welcome and their enthusiasm.

David Howell.

We would ask this council to accept a proposal that we have for David Howell to be a chaplain to Messy Church.

The background to this is that when Messy Church started we had ministerial support and involvement from Trudy Wigley. Since Trudy left we have had little or no ministerial input. Norma McKemey was meant to take on this role but she soon had to give it up to concentrate on the Four O’Clock service.

Last year David came along to see what happened at Messy Church and was very impressed with what we where doing. Since then he has attended every Messy Church and our core team meetings. The core team believe that Messy Church needs regular ministerial input, someone who knows what is happening in Messy Church and can relate that back to partnership clergy. We also think it is good to have someone recognisable at Messy Church acting as chaplain to both the congregation and the volunteers. It is important to us that we are seen as being part of the partnership and have your support.

You can find out more about Messy Church on our Website http://messychurcholdtown.co.uk/   or Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/messychurcholdtown/