Wild in Oxfordshire!

Published 14th October 2024 by Sally O'Hare

One of our favourite things to do as a Messy Church team is to get out and about and meet Messy Church people; so Aike and Sally were delighted to deliver a Messy Church Goes Wild Roadshow in Kennington near Oxford on the afternoon of Sunday 29 September. They were joined by an adventurous group who were interested in taking their worship outside into the natural world. It was great to have a mixture of adults and young people exploring together. Thanks to local Messy Church leader Kathryn, there were refreshments (including cake!) as people arrived.

We started with some time together inside learning a little bit about the why of Messy Church Goes Wild and the resources that are available to help Messy Churches get outside. If you’d like to explore this take a look here or watch this introductory video. But the best way to learn is to have a try so we soon got outside together! Aike took us ‘On the Move’ a chance to walk and stop at different points sharing as we went. Even in late September it was amazing how many different things people found using magnifying glasses!

Then we split up and tried some different activities including cloud spotting, a mini beast hunt, bird tools (a chance to see how birds eat), soil testing and bulb planting. Sally also demonstrated some different ways to eat together outside and some ways to use fire during a Messy Church Goes Wild. Lastly we all came back together for a celebration round the fire. We sang led by local Messy Church leader Emma and used some of the prayers that are in Messy Adventures. Alex another local Messy Church leader told the Parable of the Mustard Seed, joined by some of the young people, with the mustard tree eventually sitting on her Dad’s shoulders in order to keep growing! Happily the rain that had been forecast all afternoon waited until after we had pack up to appear! We’re very grateful to the team at St Swithun’s Church, Kennington who hosted us as well as to the Vale of the Whitehorse Parish Council who provided some funding to make this roadshow possible.