It’s been a heavy month of January here in the US.
If you are looking for a way to make space for the heaviness and grief in your Messy Church, you are not alone.
While there isn’t a “perfect” Messy Church session for these times, our team has thought about some possibilities that could be adapted for this context to fit your context. (If you’ve been through a Get Started training with us, you know the key – Context. Adapt.)
Do. Love. Walk. – This session focuses on Micah 6:6-8 and helps us explore themes of justice and love. Activities include making glasses for helping us see with “God’s eyes” and a reflection station to help us consider what God might be requiring of us. The Celebration focuses on walking humbly with God.
Love Your Neighbor – This is part of a series (Love God, Love Your Neighbor, Love the World) and the session focuses on Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. Activities help explore the question of “who is my neighbor” and how we might be called to serve our neighbors. The Celebration uses the book Who is My Neighbor? By Amy-Jill Levine & Sandy Eisenberg Sasso to help imagine Jesus’ story. With an older Messy Church community, you might also consider having your group re-write Jesus’ parable using modern language and characters (Who would be the Samaritan today?).
All Our Feelings – This session explores the Book of Psalms with the intention of helping folks explore what it means to share all our emotions with God. Importantly, the Book of Psalms reminds us that God has room for all our emotions including sadness, lament, and anger. The “mad lib” activity that is used in the Celebration time highlights a psalm of celebration and praise, but it could easily be done using a psalm of lament instead if that would fit your context.
The book Seriously Messy may also have resources that would be helpful for you. Written in 2019 and published by the Bible Reading Fellowship in the UK, this book was written especially for helping Messy Church communities explore themes of grief, loss, and finding safe space. The book is available as an e-book download in the BRF store.
We hope that these resources might help you and your Messy Church community in the coming days. As a Messy Church family, we lift our prayers for America. We pray for justice rooted in dignity, peace grounded in truth, and the courage to love our neighbors well. May we listen deeply, act faithfully, and work toward a more just and compassionate world.
Messy Blessings from the Messy Church USA Team