Not an overwhelming success?

We held our third Messy Communion yesterday. It was – well, I suppose it was OK, which isn’t good enough. The crafts were all fine – a range of ideas about Holy Week – including a huge donkey to paint with the teenagers, a miniature table with food for the Last Supper on it to create, Hama bead crosses, bread roll making (my craft – sense of triumph that I remembered to get them to wash hands this time). A twelve-year-old led an activity on how to draw winter trees – his speciality – and loved doing it, the food was great and there was very little waste, but there wasn’t the awe and wonder that we’ve experienced before during the celebration.
It felt a bit everydayish and a bit unfocused. Why? Perhaps we should have built the specialness up more, manufactured a bridge of wonder to carry people from the noise of crafts to the peace. Maybe we should have insisted that adults stick close to their children, to help these tired, excited little people to concentrate. Maybe we simply didn’t pray enough. Messy Church isn’t all roses for any of us, is it?
Rose-worthy things however include a couple of new families – friends of regular congregation members – coming and being welcomed by lots of people (hooray, well done, team), and a conversation with one lad who picked up all his booty at the end, including the massive bread roll he’d made, saying in appreciation, ‘And it’s all free!’, which gave me (world’s biggest wimper-out of holy conversations) the chance to say, ‘Yes! We think God’s generous to us and that’s why we like giving things to other people!’