Messy Plans!

You are reading the plans of a nervous woman. Nails are being bitten. Up to now I've always had the excuse to hide behind: 'Well of course, I have lots of ideas for Messy Church and if only I had time, I would be trying them out, what a shame that there's so much else to do...' But now, thanks to the generosity and vision of some individuals and trusts, I've been given the opportunity to step away temporarily from the rest of the Barnabas work and to concentrate solely on Messy Church for the next few years. The time for bluster has gone: it's time to put some action where my mouth is. And that shouldn't be at the ends of my fingers.

The work as we're planning it will involve developing Messy Church in my own church and trying out some of those whizzo ideas I've had mulling for some time - how to build up the teenagers' team; how to involve new people through the band; what to do about discipleship, publicity, pastoral care and more. After all, we want to make sure that any new ideas we propose for Messy Church across the country come from a tried-and-tested background in our own church.

It will also involve continuing to encourage and equip other leaders of Messy Churches around the country through the website and face-to-face support: Messy Fiestas will be taking place in Oxford, Truro, Poole, Bury St Edmunds, Norwich, Bromsgrove, Leicester, Lowestoft, Scotland and more...

Obviously it's going to be impossible to respond to every invitation all by myself, so one of the early tasks will be to find key regional people who can brandish the flag in their own area and be a first and lasting point of contact for others around them. As we build up the network of people leading Messy Church, we begin to put together a network of wisdom, experience and ideas that, if we can find a way to bring it all together, could help everyone involved in ministry among households of people 'on the edge', whether that's through Messy Church or other forms of church.

There should also be time to plunder the expertise on the rest of the Barnabas and BRF teams - the Barnabas team holds a wealth of knowledge in the whole area of working with children and families and the BRF team will be giving me its ever-professional support both in the administration and as we think about the infrastructure of how we resource and support people: possibilities at the moment include future resource books, messy merchandise and developing the website, but who knows what new ideas will open up as we go forward?

The funding also gives me the time to go and talk to wise people and to try to discern with them the way forward for Messy Church within the context of the different denominations. It's a fascinating example of pioneer ministry - in other words, nobody's done this before in quite the same way and we have the chance to make sure that we make the most of the opportunities presented by this new form of church. Talking to the people with wide outlooks, theological training and who have the bigger picture of church growth in mind will help ensure that we keep asking the right questions, even if we can't always find the right answers straight away. And I can pass the results of these discussions on to fire up more discussion and - I hope - productive ideas.

So with all this ahead of us, it looks as though the coming years will be exciting ones for Messy Church. As ever we welcome the involvement of all the BRF supporters scattered throughout the UK and the wider world. If you can offer support through prayer, expertise, time or finances to develop the work even more; if you can see an opportunity for developing Messy Church in any way in your area; or even if you just want to give the idea a thumbs-up of encouragement with a cheery letter or email, do get in touch and we'll be delighted to work together with you to help build God's kingdom among families wherever he takes us. And if anyone has a manicure set, do parcel it up for me...

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