A small country church comes alive, filled with the voices of children and all ages, joining together for a Messy celebration. How did it all come about?
The Rev Bob Done lives in Jindera, just North of Albury-Wodonga and earlier this year, Bob was perusing some of the National Connect2Church materials, which now come from our Diocese. Connect2Church is mainly about producing printed invitations which Anglicans can use to invite their friends, family and neighbours to church. This is a free service for parishes in our Diocese. One of these sets of invitations is for inviting people to a Messy Church service, and this one attracted Bob's attention.
Bob rang me to find out more, and soon he was suggesting that a team should fly down to his region to Resource, Inspire, Serve and Enable people to run Messy Church. I put him on to my friends and colleagues Glen and Sue Taylor at Sherwood parish who have recently been designated the Regional Coordinators for Messy Church in Queensland and Northern NSW. Like me, they were a little surprised to be approached, and suggested Bob could see whether there were any MC trainers a little closer to him, in Sydney, Canberra or Melbourne, for example. Some days later, Bob rang back to say he couldn't find anyone and would be happy to provide flights and accommodation for Sue, Glen and myself, to come for a three day mission in early October 2014.
We arrived at Albury a little later than expected on Monday afternoon, and drove straight up to Culcairn, where around 30-40 people from about ten parishes had gathered for a meal prepared by the parish, which provided a useful distraction while we quickly set up our projector/screen/tables/handouts etc, and soon we were underway.
Our plan was that Monday night would be a training session with handouts, Powerpoint presentations, and then actual hands-on practising of some of the craft activities we had brought (or asked Bob to buy locally, so that we did not have to carry down colossal amounts of paper, paint, etc!) This ran very smoothly, and about 80% of the attendees indicated that they would be returning the next night for the 'real' Messy Church at Culcairn.
Once everyone had left, the kitchen was cleaned and all had been left set up for the next night, we travelled back South to Bob and Nerida's residence in Jindera, where we had very comfortable accommodation generously provided.
The next day, I went for a very early walk around this small town (c. 1000 people) to look around (geocaching) and get some exercise. The rest of the morning was spent on a little drive in and out of Victoria, with a stop off at the Hume Weir, the massive damming of the Murray River which I admit I hadn't heard of before. We arrived home to greet the Right Rev Rob Gillion, new Bishop of the Riverina, and his delightful wife, Janine. We chatted about Rob and Janine's work in London, the remarkable sequence of events by which they have come to Australia, and youth and children's ministry. +Rob and I also discussed bad backs as I had injured mine not long before, and he said he had hurt his through choreographing fight scenes for the stage! At Jindera, we were apparently sitting just inside the Wangaratta diocese, but Culcairn is certainly all Riverina.
We then made our way back to Culcairn for our final set up and then welcomed probably close to 60 people of all ages to their first Messy Church. There was a hugely positive and enthusiastic tone throughout, even though not everything went according to plan, especially during the Celebration time, but we made it through and everyone looked happy, not least the Bishop and Fr Bob who were delighted with the attendance and the opportunity to engage with families from many parts of the region.
All too soon, it was time to pack up, and head back to the Dones, prior to flying out the next day. In our time of debriefing and reflection with Bob and Nerida, we were able to identify a few strengths and weaknesses of the experience.
This was the first time we had used a two-night model, where we trained people on one night and then hosted a real MC 24 hours later, but I think it worked very well indeed. I guess it took some commitment for people to travel to Culcairn on two consecutive week-nights, but as a method of reinforcing the learning from night one, it would be hard to beat. It helps that Sue and Glen were incredibly well-organised in terms of using simple craft needing materials that would be easy to transport or source locally, such as the pipe-cleaner butterflies, cardboard creatures and 'Trinity hats' (of which the Bishop made a big, funny purple one; who'd have thought? ;) ).
A couple of weaknesses that came to mind were not rehearsing the Celebration section a little more thoroughly, and also asking attendees to tidy up their craft tables before leaving for the Celebration, in order to minimise the workload for the team members who then need to set up for the meal. Of course, these are things we can improve for our next training sessions.
The parish of North Albury sent a busload of people to both nights, and we are confident that they and at least a couple of the other parishes represented are capable of hosting their own MC services in the new year, if not before. We look forward to following their progress.
If anyone would like more info on Messy Church locally, see the previous blog post and don't hesitate to contact me on (07) 3514 7432 or jdkemp@ministryeducation.org.au or contact Sue or Glen Taylor via www.sherwoodanglican.com.
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