Lis Telcs is the children and families minister at St Nicholas’ Church in Saltdean near Brighton, a highly inclusive – look them up on www.achurchnearyou.com – warmly welcoming anglo-Catholic congregation. Lis recently contacted the Messy Church support team to ask them to pray for a very special occasion: Holly and daughter Lily had asked to be baptised in a Messy Church celebration. With their kind permission, Lis shares their story.
‘Holly began coming to our weekly Stay and Play group which we set up three years ago when a parent in the congregation who had had her second child during lockdown said she felt very bereft of adult company, and felt her child had missed out on being with other children.’
A year later, after being captivated by the Messy Church vision at a training day led by Messy Church lead Aike Kennett-Brown, Lis started a Messy Church at St Nicholas. Soon a trickle of Stay and Play people began going to Messy Church as well and it wasn’t long before Holly and three year old Lily joined them.
‘Holly was quite isolated. She doesn’t have a lot to do with her family anymore and when she started coming along to Stay and Play and then Messy Church she found a lot of support. Sharing food is always part of the Messy Church welcome and for Holly that’s been really helpful. She lives with a number of chronic illnesses which means she can’t work and sometimes depends on the local food bank. So she’s found the practical support really wonderful, as well as the friendships and the company for herself and Lily. Sharing a meal at the beginning of Messy Church is a real experience of ‘family’ and Holly said in her testimony that she’s found Messy Church so welcoming, she’s not just made friends but found a family for herself and Lily.
Holly wasn’t baptised as a child and always wondered why not. As she got more involved in Messy Church it was something she really wanted to do. ‘Lily and I have always loved Messy Church, she said, ‘so we chose to be baptised as part of it, so we could share it with the Messy Church family.’
Lis was touched when Holly asked her to be Lily’s godparent and is looking forward to walking with both of them as they continue their faith journey, which for Holly may involve preparing for confirmation. ‘I’ve suggested to our interim incumbent, Revd Louise, that I could work on confirmation preparation with Holly. It would strengthen my own knowledge but also, because we’re both neuro-divergent, it would be really interesting to trial our new diocesan confirmation resources, to see if they work for people like us.’
Lis gave Holly and Lily two specially chosen gifts for their baptism, a small olive wood holding cross for Lily, and a cosy blanket with ‘God loves you’ written on it for Holly.
‘From the very beginning of getting to know Holly, what I most wanted her to know was that God loves her, and that God’s love is very different from what she used to think love was when she was caught up in some very toxic, damaging relationships. Holly finds it difficult to get out of the house sometimes, but they’ve been coming to church whenever Holly’s been well enough, and she’ll often send me little videos of Lily singing the songs from Stay and Play, like ‘Jesus’s love is very wonderful’, with all the actions.’
‘Holly is really full of the Spirit and when she’s well she talks about it to other people. She invites them to Stay and Play and Messy Church so she’s doing her own evangelism in her own way.
‘We’re a very inclusive church and it’s our purpose as a church to share the reality of God’s love and grace with as many different people as we possibly can.’
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