Please click here to find out about future events. Most of our Messy Church events take place at Forton Primary School, Forton, Lancashire. Read on to see what we have been getting up to in previous events!
Saturday 9th February 2019 “Communication”
The theme today was all about communicating – hearing God’s message, and telling our friends about the Good News of Jesus. We made morse code tappers, loud speakers, played sound games and made ear headresses, amongst other fun activities. We joined together for a very noisy and fun worship session, and had a lovely meal together. Now, we can all go out in to our communities and spread the message on how much fun we have at Messy Church!
1st December 2018 “The Gift”
We welcomed in Advent today with a Messy Christmas service, filled with fun activities and celebrating Jesus’s birth. We made paper angels, made and lit our own candle jars, made beautiful decorative garlands and love hearts to hang around our houses, and even created cupcake edible cribs with little babies in them. They quickly got eaten, of course, but there were still lots of lovely things to take home afterwards. We had a fabulous winter-warming meal, and enjoyed a reflective time thinking about the wonderful gift that God gave us – his only son, Jesus Christ.
6th October 2018 “Harvest”
Today we celebrated Harvest, and gave thanks for the wonderful bounty we receive each year. We are so lucky, our supermarkets and farm shops are always well stocked, and it is easy to forget that a lot of hard work goes on to fill our shops with all the good food. We are also very lucky to live in a country noted for it’s mild weather – we hear about hurricanes and earthquakes on the news, but rarely experience anything of that kind here. And to grow our food, the weather needs to be sunny but not too dry, wet enough without flooding, and mild without extreme storms or high winds. We are so lucky that we generally get just what is needed for our crops to flourish without being destroyed. What an amazing reason to give thanks!
14th July 2018 “God’s Creation”
Today we revisited that wonderful theme of celebrating God’s amazing creation. We made animal masks, painted symmetrical butterflies, went on an animal hunt round the garden, made clay creature models, and played an animal word game as well as making (and eating!) fruit snakes. Afterwards we gave thanks to God for our beautiful planet, and finally we shared a lovely meal together. Do come along to our next Messy Church, which is sure to be great fun – we would love to meet you and your family and share fellowship together!
12th May 2018 “Pentecost”
This afternoon we explored the meaning and significance of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit first came to the disciples, after Jesus had ascended to Heaven. What better way to introduce this topic than by toasting marshmallows over a camp fire? But we had plenty of other crafts to enjoy as well: we made and flew kites, we constructed and wore flame headbands, we made dove balloon streamers, we iced strawberry flame cakes, as well as making twirlers and doodle painting. After all that activity, we just had enough energy for some great worship and songs, and blew our prayers around the room, out to the Lord, and to each other! A delicious tea was provided by our fantastic catering team; a tasty end to a wonderful afternoon!
28th March 2018 “Easter special: the Cross”.
Today our willing band of volunteers met for a messy morning at St. James church. We all worked together to craft some beautiful collages, to decorate the font in St. James Church.
We used all sorts of different materials to express the path that Jesus trod during the weeks leading up to and immediately after the crucifixion. We were ably helped along by numerous cups of tea and juice, and some lovely homemade cakes!
Here you can see representations of the wooden cross that Jesus had to carry, and the garden where he was laid in the tomb. Please do come and visit us at St. James church this Easter, where you will be able to see our finished artwork decorating the font at the back of the church.
17th March 2018 “Saints”.
The theme today was all about Saints; we looked at famous saints throughout history and through crafting and games we discovered more about their lives and beliefs. We enjoyed a fabulous noisy worship session, complete with handmade kazoos playing to the tune of “When the Saints come Marching In”! Finally, we enjoyed our usual joyful fellowship with a meal prepared by our wonderful volunteers.
27th January 2018 “Daniel in the Lion’s Den”.
We had a fun and exciting afternoon; strangely, a lot of children came in to Messy Church, but by home time those children seemed to have disappeared, and in their place were some very scary lions! We acted out the story of Daniel, helped by our young lions, and did some amazing crafts and worship. Finally, we all enjoyed a hot meal together. Watch out Forton, for some lions prowling about!
25th November 2017 “The Gift”.
We found out lots about God’s amazing gift to us of his son, Jesus. We made some beautiful crafts, including a beautiful wooden crib and peg figures of Mary, Joseph and Jesus, enjoyed some fun games, and finally shared worship and a lovely meal together. Happy Christmas everybody! Make sure you don’t miss out on our next Messy Church, which promises to be just as much fun!
23rd September 2017 “The Lord’s Prayer”.
We all had a fantastic afternoon finding out about The Lord’s Prayer. We made prayer books, wrote prayers and added them to our graffiti wall, made wooden crosses, decorated biscuits, played giant prayer scrabble, and many other fun activities. After a prayerful worship session (in which we found out what God thinks of the Lord’s prayer), we all shared food and fellowship together.
8th July 2017 “Summer Special: Creation”.
Our theme today was “Creation”, and our setting was, appropriately, the 
beautiful Vicarage garden. Among the many interesting activities were a garden scavenger hunt, beetle drive, face painting, dove flying, nature painting, and even a chance to make your own bird feeder – this was so popular, that our leaders were busy helping latecomers wield their hammers and nails long after the barbecue was eaten! The birds around Forton will certainly be very well fed this winter!
