Encouragement

Messy Churches are doing such a good job all round the world and dealing with some really big Bible stories and life issues, and being there for people in really tough situations. This isn’t fluffy cuddly stuff – this is life-changing. Our team dealt with the hard-hitting question of material wealth yesterday – camels through the eyes of needles, lilies of the field, buried treasure and Jesus’ apparently upside-down values. What do you value most in a silent auction – ‘an iPad’, ‘a Ben 10 humungosaur’, ‘a spa experience’ or ‘happiness’, ‘clean water’, ‘peace’? Interestingly ‘freedom to come to church’ was won by a five-year-old who paid 30 Messy Dollars for it…
And in Morden Charis Lambert’s Messy Church is exploring stories from Acts:
MC last night was full with 127 people eating chicken risotto and traffic light jam tarts, Janet baked all 200 of them with strawberry or apricot jam, and then coloured lemon curd green to make the ‘go’ tarts!! Our theme is STOP< LOOK< LISTEN this term doing Paul on Damascus Road, Paul and Silas in prison and Paul's shipwreck.
While over in Alaska (yes! Alaska!) Clarice Moore's church have just got going and felt the loving presence of God from the word go:
We had our very first Messy Church Saturday, and it was amazing. The very very best part of the day was one of our little girls from our church, 8 years old, just finished treatment for lymphoma and was able to be here. She walked in the door and it was as if God patted each of us on the head and smiled. We had 46 people, about 14 kids. After all the praises in church on Sunday, several families said they wouldn’t miss the next one, they’d just had no idea.
I was particularly cheered by one of our dads telling me that his son in Year R had been ill all afternoon but had insisted on coming to Messy Church, obviously distraught at the idea of missing it, even if they were going to get there late. Would I have been so desperate to get myself to a church service if I was feeling under the weather? This family is part of a great theological strand running through history: 'I rejoiced with those who said to me, "Let us go up to the house of the Lord."' (Psalm 122:1, NIV).
Of such tiny 'God moments' is God growing his kingdom. Much hoorahing.