Messy Church

Fresh Ideas for Building a Christ-Centered Community

Lucy Moore, Jane Leadbetter

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780830841387
• eBook ISBN: 9780830888900
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

IVP Readers' Choice Award

We like the idea of community, but where do we start?

The Messy Church series provides resources to help your church bring together people of all ages and stages of faith, allowing them to experience a creative and fun-filled Christian community. Messy Church, the first book in the series, offers your church a tool to create a unique, come-as-you-are experience built on

• creativity—allowing space for all to play and create
• celebration—worshiping God and his redeeming work in Jesus
• hospitality—sharing a meal where all are welcome

This complete resource helps you share the love of God and his people with families in your community, creating an opportunity for connection and learning in a fun and welcoming environment. With instructions for starting a program at your church, Messy Church includes fifteen sessions for use throughout the year.

Let's get messy!

What Is Church?

Perhaps because food is such an integral part of Messy Church, the story of the feeding of the five thousand (Luke 9:10-17) makes a good starting point for reflection on what we’re trying to do—and it’s quite revealing. What sort of gathering are we? A full-blown church of rock-solid disciples or something different? Something . . . messier?

Perhaps the feeding of the five thousand isn’t just a story about miracles. Perhaps it’s about the question, “What is a disciple?” You’ve got five thousand men, plus women and children (who don’t even deserve to be counted, but we will pass swiftly over this without grumbling), who have come together to hear Jesus. Are they disciples?

The old faithful, signed-on-the-dotted-line, yes-we-definitely-are disciples want to be alone with Jesus for a cozy post-mission huddle. Jesus, who has not only just heard the news about his cousin John’s death but also has been having a rough time with the Pharisees, sneaks off with his twelve close friends for some time out in the countryside. It’s all set to be a good time of small group fellowship—a retreat, a time to be close to God. Perhaps in our Sunday gatherings we would secretly rather be like that—an intimate select group, keeping Jesus to ourselves. What do we feel at heart when someone from the outside joins us? Is there that feeling of, Oh brother, it’s not half as cozy when a stranger comes in. They’ll change everything?

Yes, the crowds find out where Jesus is hiding and present themselves for another Jesus show. Perhaps they were there already, waiting by the lakeside. We can imagine the disciples’ hearts sinking as they saw the crowds start to wave and shout from the shore. Or perhaps, as John says, the crowd arrived afterward. It’s hard not to picture them descending on the little group with whoops of glee at finding them at last, like the seekers in a game of hide-and-seek.

With bucketfuls of compassion at their sheeplike behavior, Jesus “welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed healing” (Luke 9:11). Then, of course, he gave them lunch. Look at all that giving! There’s not a hint that Jesus demanded anything of them. He just gave them his welcome, his wisdom, his powers, and an impromptu picnic. Here’s the free food prophecy of Isaiah 55:1-2 coming true: “You who have no money, / come, buy and eat! . . . Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good.” Here is the manna from heaven being poured out free of charge. Jesus does make demands of his disciples—“You give them something to eat!” (Luke 9:13)—but not of the crowd. If only we, in our tired, busy world, would echo his unconditional pouring out of all that we are and all that we have. No wonder the outsiders stayed around.

Looking at the crowd on that hillside, we see a gathering of people of all ages, eager to see something of Jesus. These people on the hillside were hungry to be fed spiritually. Even if they turned up hoping for a spectacular act of turning water into wine or cleansing of lepers, they didn’t leave the minute the miracles stopped and the teaching started. They had a God-shaped hole in them, as if they had been starved spiritually all their lives.

Were they disciples, though? Most of them must have been there out of curiosity. They made no commitment to Jesus beyond making the journey to see him and suffering a bruised backside from sitting on a rock all day. We wonder if their obvious lack of food supplies was an indication that they weren’t expecting to stay the whole day but somehow got caught up in his wonderful teaching. (“Can’t we just stay for one more story, Mom?”) The crowd on the hillside was a gathering of people. They certainly met Jesus there. There were people who were healed (Matthew 14:14) and who ate up his teaching (Mark 6:34), and they broke bread together. But let’s face it, there’s not much evidence that the people in that crowd were committed to Jesus or to each other. We don’t know if they were prepared to follow his teaching, or if they were linked into any wider framework of faith.

The crowd is rather like the field that has wheat and weeds growing in it (Matthew 13:24-30), a mixture of the genuine and the bogus, those who will prove fruitful and those who just enjoyed a good day out. Jesus is content for the field to be a messy mixture for the time being. He doesn’t demand anything right there. He just gives what he has to give, and shows the people, in the messiest possible way (oily fish, crumbly bread passed from unwashed hand to hand . . . eww!) how their lives can be transformed if they’re in the hands of this miraculous God. It’s a gospel of getting your hands muddy, of full bellies and uncontrollable laughter.

Some churches need an excuse to rediscover the fun of following Jesus.

Obviously, this is only one side of the gospel, and discipline and suffering are the flipside of the fun and fellowship. But perhaps some churches need an excuse to rediscover the fun of following Jesus, that great party-thrower of banquets, picnics, and intimate family suppers. Maybe at Messy Church we are on the hillside, outside the traditional church restrictions, with all the fun and froth of faith, the generous giving, and the family fellowship. We’re providing a picnic where people are free to come, take, and go if that’s what they want. Like God’s provision of manna in a desolate land, Messy Church provides a source of nourishment, creativity, and fellowship in a numb, materialistic society.

In our communities today, there are plenty of people who are searching spiritually and physically. There are people of all ages with spiritual needs, who feel “there must be more to life than this,” or who have a sense of something greater than a video game or a widescreen TV. There are plenty of people who have definite physical needs too: they need a good solid meal, or perhaps a hug, a conversation where they’re really heard, or the chance to put their feet up and have a cup of tea in peace. Maybe, when they meet both Jesus and his people together and share a sandwich, they’ll stay longer than they’d planned. They’re not disciples—not ready to take up their cross beyond the sacrifice of time and effort to get to Messy Church and having to wash a pile of paint-splattered clothes. But they are followers on the messy edge, willing to hear more about Jesus.

The story of the feeding of the five thousand also has something to tell us about receiving from unlikely people. In John’s version, it is the boy who gives up his picnic, and Jesus is able to feed everyone from this small gift. This passage says something to us about the way we treat children and other people who are traditionally sidelined. We, the organizers, the efficient and skilled ones, must expect to receive from them. We must keep our eyes, minds, and hearts open to see what they’re offering us and not just assume that we are the benevolent benefactors while they are the humble recipients.

Giving is part of our dignity as human beings. It might be something such as really listening to a five-year-old’s insights into a story or accepting a hand with clearing the table from one of the dads. It might be saying, “Yes, please” to an offer from a ninety-year-old to teach crocheting. And it might require creativity to find ways for teens to help with the activities, meals, or greeting at the door. Perhaps in Messy Church we need to build in the opportunity for everyone to give as well as to receive. This is different from demanding. It’s a matter of being gracious enough to accept from unlikely people what they have to offer—a cake, a donation of money, an offer to help lead an activity, an idea for next time. Human beings need to feel needed.

The twelve full baskets of leftovers aren’t the end of this story about discipleship, according to John. There’s a definite narrative thread beyond the actual picnic scene. First, there’s a misunderstanding about what sort of king Jesus is. (It’s very reassuring that some people get it wrong even when Jesus himself is teaching them! We can’t expect a 100 percent success rate ourselves.) The next day, some of them go in search of Jesus again and find him in Capernaum on the other side of the lake. It must have felt more and more like a game of hide-and-seek. Interestingly, Jesus is in the synagogue now (John 6:59), not out on a hillside. The followers seem rather peeved that he went off without them—“Rabbi, when did you get here?” (John 6:25)—but Jesus, who can see what people are thinking, knows what they’re really after. He challenges them about their motivation: “You are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill” (v. 26).

Now is the time for bringing out the tough side of being a disciple—when they ask leading questions. “What exactly does God want us to do?” they ask. Jesus replies, “to believe in the one he has sent” (vv. 28-29). He starts teaching them about commitment. He pushes these more determined seekers further still and talks not about sandwich rolls but about the bread of life. He takes them beyond the physical and immediate. He talks about his flesh being true food (whoa, this is getting too heavy for some of them). It thins out the followers even more: many of them said, “This is a hard teaching” (v. 60), and John writes, “From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him” (v. 66). Jesus is left wi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction: Lucy Moore
• Part 1: All About Messy Church
• Part 2: Let’s Get Messy!
• Acknowledgments
• Messy Church
• Also Available
• IVP Praxis
• Praise for Messy Church
• About the Authors
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press
• Copyright