BRF Ministries: Messy Church

MESSY CHURCH IS OFFERING WAYS of helping children remain engaged with church as they grow older by meeting their needs for experiential worship, community, and intellectually appropriate engagement. This page outlines the approaches being explored, the planned pilot work and the resources available to churches.

Missional challenge

Children aged 9+ are disengaging from age-bounded worshipping communities, alongside a lack of effective missional strategies for rural churches.

Missional opportunity

New models of worshipping communities, discipleship pathways and transitions that keep children and young people engaged across different ages.

Planned activities

BRF will be piloting different approaches to keeping children engaged after the age of 11, consulting with a wide range of partners to identify promising approaches to pilot. The answer may lie in adapting the current intergenerational approach within Messy Church; it may lie in partnering with a youth specialist to create new worshipping communities; or it may lie in a good ‘handover of the baton’ to churches to take on the youth work – or it could be a mixture of all three. BRF will also be supporting 300 parishes to start a new Messy Church.

Impact

Whilst 56% of Messy Church attendees are under 12, only 4% are aged 12–16, demonstrating a significant drop-off at around 11 years of age. If we could retain 50% of children when they turn 12 and beyond, that would prevent the loss of 20,580 young disciples.