I came away from my meeting with the vicar of Northam Mead thoroughly confused. The Parish Development Department of the diocese had pointed me towards the parish as an example of one they'd worked with which was working through the business of re-energising a church in the Catholic ambit and finding out, with some success, what that meant. Now, in my thinking and debate with others I have imbibed, and repeated, the following principles among others:- that it's not primarily about 'getting people in' and thus just institutional maintenance
- that worship events are not the drivers of evangelism
- that Messy Church, specifically, is 'Church' in its own right and not a feeder for 'proper' church
At Northam Mead, however, they've operated on what seem to be the exact opposite of all these assumptions. The key of their strategy is that the easiest way to grow a church, and thus ensure its institutional survival, is via 4-7 year-old children and their parents, and they have used their Messy Church precisely as the feeder for Sunday worship, by encouraging attenders to have their children baptised, to be confirmed themselves (using those confirmation groups first as a version of Alpha and then as the basis for home groups) and to come to the Mass on Sundays.
I am going to have to ask about this, if only to clarify what I think.
A friend comments:
ReplyDeleteMessy church is church, but it is also a feeder into traditional church.
So too trad church is a feeder into messy church, when people have kids.
My wife and I wanted a church that offered something for our daughter. That is why we left the Catholic church for our current church. Not all - or even many - of the many five year olds may still be present at 12 or 18, but some are, and all will know something of the gospel message. Jess is doing Junior Alpha at the moment.
To which I reply:
Yes, but – if Messy Church is ‘Church’, that is, a self-sufficient expression of Christian community rather than just an aspect of a wider one, then it has to exhibit the signs of ‘Church’, and people should be baptised and receive communion, for instance, within that setting. If you read the original material from the Messy Church pioneers, that’s exactly what they envisage happening. They’re emphatic that Messy Church is about devising a form of church life for people who would otherwise have no connection with the Christian faith, rather than something parents who are already Christians can do with their children, and therefore it has no necessary link with any other congregation. They argue that the leaders and providers, too, should regard Messy Church as their primary experience of ‘Church’, and concentrate on it in preference to any other form of worship or fellowship.
If, however, you decide that Messy Church actually functions more along the lines you describe (and that’s our experience too), then you won’t necessarily expect it to develop a sacramental life of its own, and instead will encourage people who attend it to come to ‘proper’ church as well, and be discipled in different ways.
What you decide is the nature and purpose of Messy Church (and, I suppose, other similar sorts of initiatives) will strongly affect how you approach it and develop it.