Mickleover Messy Fiesta

Captain Sean Andrews of the Church Army had organized this Messy Fiesta as training for the children’s leaders’ team of his church but had invited the Churches Together group and friends and strangers from near and far. We were delighted to have 53 guests plus the host team from a range of distance of ‘just up the road’ to Liverpool, Hull and Rotherham. Two children’s advisers had kindly given up the day to come, and Jane counted / discerned eight clergy. We were also pleased to have three or four children among us. The host church laid on a superb lunch of gargantuan proportions.
Following on from some very useful suggestions from the good messy people of Newcastle, we had altered the programme slightly to include a Craft Storm: each group was challenged to come up with ten ideas on different themes that can be put on the web for all to share: check out the resources section.
The cut and thrust of debate was just as friendly as on previous occasions, but perhaps more keenly thought-through – we had few of the down-to-earth, practical questions and more of the bigger picture questions. We got the impression this is a group of people who are quite a long way down the Fresh Expressions path.
Perhaps my favourite moment of the day was catching sight of one of our younger guests very intently blowing into a bowl of paint to make the bubbles rise higher and higher and higher until the dread moment when he forgot to blow and sucked…
A few comments from the feedback forms:
A super day. Thanks for all your hard work. Perhaps more question time.
Exciting, encouraging, envisioning day. THANK YOU.