A time to play and a time to.....play

This morning's sermon spoke to me, I love it when they do that, but really why wouldn't it?  I could be attuned to anything that would work with the Messy Church Ministry, and that's ok too. 


Dare to have fun at church.  


Be childlike in your faith.


After the Children's Moment and they went back to Worship and Wonder, the adults sang...

I can't tell you the last time I heard this, let alone SANG it!  


Really, we do this.  We "outgrow" playing to learn in favor of (well, forcibly! lol) book learning. I couldn't WAIT to grow up, to be "counted".  I see that in my daughter now, and I see myself helping this along "not now", "be still", "shhhhh".   A time and a place for everything yes, but I hear myself say these things when I could be joining them!  How can we as a community slow this or stop it?  


I think Messy Church can do this for many families.  
I think it can help the adults let the kids be kids and learn through play. 
I think it can remind the grown ups how much fun playing can be!!! 
I think it will remind us how much we can learn about ourselves while playing and what WE can learn about/from our children while watching them play.


To let them get messy.  Do you remember finger painting? How freeing that was!  Jumping rope, singing a well loved song that EVERYONE  is singing...and if you want to top it off, we are singing it in a round!  Glue and glitter should be involved somewhere.  Some sand, yes...some colored sand.



How can we get the teenagers to remember this is fun, how can we let the kiddos do for themselves and get messy, and how can we integrate age appropriate crafts for adults?  


Psalm 100

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
²     Worship the Lord with gladness;
    come before him with joyful songs.
³ Know that the Lord is God. 
    It is he who made us, and we are his^[a];
    we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

⁴ Enter his gates with thanksgiving 
    and his courts with praise;
    give thanks to him and praise his name. 
⁵ For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; 
    his faithfulness continues through all generations.

We also sang this...complete with movements...  Great thing, a whole congregation clapping and stomping together.  We were all grinning like happy children!

Lets all get our hands dirty, get down on the floor with our tweens and teens and remember that we don't have to stay "clean" and neat and tidy.  Sometimes to learn what is in our hearts, or being put on it, we have to play and be messy..