Messy Confirmations at Wingerworth, January 2011

Messy Church at Wingerworth meets eight Saturdays a year, with either breakfast or evening meal, but most of the mums also come during the week with their children for one reason or another. Most of the children go to the same nursery or school, brownies etc. so they’re already loosely connected and at least on nodding terms with each other.

Messy Church is where we come together as families, as individuals, and as a family. People from other church services serve as helpers on activities and in the kitchen. There is a ‘Come and find out about this God’ course once a year, and some gentle teaching in the church magazine that everyone is encouraged to at least try once!

We’d held a Messy Baptism for a new baby to one of our existing families last year – so how about a Messy Confirmation? The idea took off big time! ‘What does it mean?’ ‘You want to follow the God that we see in Jesus and find out more. And you want to become a ‘full’ member of the world-wide church’ ‘Will I have to come to church on Sundays … ‘cos I work that day and so I can’t do it.’ ‘…I feel a fraud as I only come here and not to ‘proper’ church.’  ‘I want to get confirmed here, even though I live two hours away, as I was brought up here … and these are the people who make me feel I belong.’  ‘My brother’s getting confirmed, so I’d love to do it with him.’ ‘This is the time for me and God ... I need to reconnect with the church and my faith, too much has come between us of late!’

And so it grew. And on Saturday 22 January, our fairly serious suffragan, Bishop Humphrey, presided over a wonderful, amazing worship experience - walking on his knees to give blessings at the rail to the many children squeezing together, along with the ten adult confirmation candidates! The service whizzed past with the usual ups and squeals, and baby-feeding of a Messy Church that normally lasts 20 minutes in the church building itself, but this time ran to 75.

Fabulous!

Rev’d Dr Jo White, Rector of All Saints’ Church, Wingerworth