At the end of every Messy Church, I always like to ask the team: What went well? Even better if? Where is God at work? However, reflecting on a whole year, on both the joys and challenges faced in Messy Church, gives us an opportunity to take a longer view and reminds us of the journey our Christ-centred communities are on, and God’s faithfulness in all we do.
It feels like the BRF ministries Messy Church team hit the ground running in 2025, but wanting to practice what we preach, we gathered online this week to pause and take time to notice where God has been at work through this ministry.
Here are our 2024 highlights:
We thank God for…
- 3 full years of working together!
- 20 years of Messy Church.
- Hearing your encouraging stories of what’s happening in your local Messy Church.
- Online Messy Meetup’s – the chance to connect and hear from individual Messy Churches.
- Opportunities to meet leaders and teams at in-person training events and conferences, including Aike’s trips to the seaside: Lee-on-Solent, Eastbourne and Seaton, Devon.
- Messy Church Goes Wild experiences at Launde Abbey and St. Swithun’s, Oxford.
- Team trip to Scotland in June, which included a day retreat on Lunan Bay: an opportunity to pause, barefoot prayer walk on the beach, and listen to God for the season ahead; followed by fantastic training days in Dundee and Glasgow, working in partnership with Fischy Music.
- 128 people attending online masterclasses, supported by our volunteer trainers.
- 150 people attending Messtival in March: an online morning of training, prayer, reflection and commissioning.
- Building a stronger ecumenical network.
- Get Messy! vol. 2 writers and how this resource blesses local Messy Churches.
- Relaunch of Messy Basics, an all-age discipleship resource that complements Get Messy! vol. 2, for Messy Churches wishing to dig deeper in discipleship between gatherings.
- New partnership with FLOURISH, equipping new Messy Churches to start in schools.
- Our Support Teams and all their prayer, wisdom, and advice they’ve freely given to those starting and continuing their Messy Church journeys.
- Our Messy young leaders Erin, Jonathan and Cameron, who host the young leaders zoom.
- Our international, intergenerational conference planning team.
- For deepening of relationships within our Messy Church Key International Leaders Group Online (MCKILGO!), providing opportunities to connect, pray and learn from Messy Church leaders around the world.
- For the growth of Messy Church in other nations and the opportunity for Aike to attend Messy Church USA Conference in Chicago in April, and to join the new Norwegian team and help launch Messy Church at Church of Norway conference, Oslo in October.
- For new partnerships with St. Andrew’s Theological College, Saskatoon who will be the ‘home of Messy Church’ in Canada, helping Carol Fletcher and her evolving team to develop and support the movement in this region.
- BRF ministries and all the people within the charity that support our team.
- People and organisations who financially support BRF ministries Messy Church team, enabling our roles to continue.
- For the success of our CofE people and partnership funding bid, enabling our team to embark on a new project focussing on young people in Messy Church 2025-2027.
- 1750 Messy Churches on the directory, of which 104 were new during 2024, representing an amazing bunch of people involved in Messy Church, with a heart for bringing God’s kingdom to our local communities.
As I look back on 2024, I can see God’s faithful provision for our team. This time last year we were adapting to a reduced staff team at BRF ministries, and without admin support, found ourselves frustrated at being more reactive and less proactive to respond to opportunities. Whilst finances are still a stretch for our core work, one year on, funding has been released by the Church of England for us to embark on a new project focussing on the faith journeys of young people that have grown through Messy Church. This enables us to recruit 3 new roles to deliver this project, including a full-time administrator, project lead and part-time network developer – how amazing is that!
You’ll be hearing lots more about this new project over the coming months, but for now we rejoice and celebrate all the good things (or God things) that have happened during 2024, both for the BRF ministries Messy Church team and in the lives of Messy Churches around the world.
As we launch into 2025, we continue to commit this ministry to prayer and invite you to do the same. I hope that our team will get to meet many of you at the Messy Church Conference in June 2025, as we explore All Together how we welcome people of all ages, abilities and from all backgrounds to Messy Church.
I wonder…
what were your 2024 highlights and challenges?
where have you noticed God at work?
what do you need to commit to our loving God in prayer?
have you booked your conference ticket?
Aike Kennett-Brown
BRF ministries Messy Church Ministry Lead
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