Messy Church USA equips local Messy Churches to start, sustain and connect. We are a nonprofit 501c3 corporation that is the home for the global Messy Church movement in the USA. Messy Church USA provides an organizational structure to support the health, growth, and sustainability of local Messy Churches. In addition, Messy Church USA will assist individual Messy Churches to become an integrated part of the larger national and global network of Messy Churches.
The tag line for the global Messy Church movement is “Church, but not as you know it”. If you have attended church for a long time, Messy Church may not look like church to you. At Messy Church, all ages meet together to learn about Christ through games, crafts and activities, music, and storytelling from the Bible. A foundational ingredient of Messy Church is to gather around a table for a snack or meal and build relationships with each other, God, and the world. Check out this article by Stephanie Martin’s, Embracing the Mess, from July/August 2019 issue of Children’s Ministry magazine to learn more about how a Messy Church experience looks. (Reprinted by permission: Children’s Ministry Magazine, July/Aug 2019 issue, Group Publishing, Loveland, CO. All rights reserved.)
Messy Church USA is affiliated with the international Messy Church movement, whose home is with the Bible Reading Fellowship (BRF), a Christian charity based in Oxfordshire, UK. Read more about BRF.
Messy Church started in an Anglican church near Portsmouth, UK, in 2004 and has grown into an international movement operating across a wide range of Christian denominations and traditions. It became part of The Bible Reading Fellowship (BRF) in 2006 with the publication of the first Messy Church book by founder Lucy Moore. Read more about how Messy Church began.
As an affiliate of the international Messy Church movement, a guiding principle for Messy Church USA is that a local Messy Church is not a stepping stone into an existing congregation, nor is it a church plant, but it is a congregation in its own right. Messy Church is ecumenical and seeks to work with all Christian churches.
Foundational Goals of Messy Church USA
- To provide training for communities wanting to start a local church
- To share best practices of leadership development and faith formation
- To provide coaching and consultation services for both new and existing Messy Churches
- To provide networking opportunities through electronic newsletters, blogs, and website
- To work closely with Messy Church UK
- To plan future regional and national conferences in the USA.