Below is a message from a Church Leader in A Church somewhere in Ireland which I received just before Christmas! ... It's great to get some encouragements along the way :-) and also some new ideas :-)
If you have any encouragements which we can share please let us know ... messy@irishchurch.org is our email address
Hi Robert
Good of you to be in touch in spite of being so seasonally busy during Advent time!
You'll not know me, but I had attended the Dublin Sunday School Conference and picked up a lot of material so as to be able to run Messy Church in A Church (AC)* in 2015 . I'm the minister of AC and in the throws of spreading the seeds in order to get a team of people going and growing who aren't the typical 'involved in everything' folk, but at the same time people full of potential, by the looks of it so far un-used potential. So I hope and pray we'll be well on the way by the time I write to you again...
As a small beginning I managed to get started with a MESSY NATIVITY...
So on Christmas Day the Travelling Nativity Set will be coming home to the Church. Didn't have much time to get knitted sheep, but by giving it a head start by knitting sheep myself I had consequently enough time to get "my ELFS" to help me knitting and in fact we were able to get 24 sheep ready along the way - then some time in 2015 I will be inviting all the families who kept one of the knitted sheep to an all-age-messy service about the Good Shepherd, and we'll be able to see how different the knitted sheep are, just as different as we are...
The Travelling Nativity Set was very well received and caused quite a bit of excitement and anticipation. Should ordinary adults be left out? NO! So for the adult members of AC I designed an ADULT ADVENT CALENDAR to run parallel to the Travelling Nativity but to reach out to a different section of thechurch. For that purpose I adapted the prayers and Blessings accordingly and used an ADVENT CALENDAR sown on green cloth material (a bit like patchwork), which has little pockets, each of those has a pinhead through the opening to hold the contents in the wee pouches. What's in it?
Well, Chocolate coins from LIDLs (you get the most chocolate compared to £-shops et al) and a pewter coin which folk can keep (all this is wrapped up in wrapping paper as a wee parcel); each of the pewter coins (size of 2E or 2£ coin) has a prayer or biblical quote printed on them. I found a variety of 5 or six different pewter coinesigns, so not everyone gets the same and the word may - by God's grace - speak in a very personal way to the person opening the Advent Calendar 'door' for the day. Some members haven't actually opened the wee parcel in their Advent Calendar 'door' but decided to keep it and only open it on Christmas day. Amazing how different people are and what they come up with...
So this is the latest from AC
May God be with you till we meet again!
A merry messy Christmas to you, your loved ones and your church!!!
AC Leader
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