Innerwick Village

Hi, done a lot of updating, and thanks go to Philip for his great help.
Will be uploading a load of Church pictures and various buildings for the Innerwick area.

There is a buzz in the Parish of Dunglass, home of three rural Church of Scotland congregations, which straddles the border between East Lothian and Berwickshire. It’s all to do with the introduction of Messy Church, which will take place on the first Sunday of each month (except January) from 4-6pm, with the venue rotating round the three villages of Cockburnspath, Innerwick and Oldhamstocks. All ages are invited and we hope to see many young families from the local area coming along to join in.

Recently inducted minister, Rev Suzie Fletcher has a passion for working with young people. Suzie has thought long and hard on how to address some of the issues facing her new parish as well as many other churches, including a lack of young families actively involved in the life of the church, the limitations of church buildings and the competition with more and more activities taking place on a Sunday morning. Whilst it may not be a cure for all of these, it is hoped that offering Messy Church as an alternative to traditional Sunday morning services might draw more folk in through its fun and creative approach, which includes arts a crafts, a time of celebration and worship and a meal. At least three other churches in East Lothian are already doing Messy Church in various forms, some on Sunday mornings, others during the week and the concept of Messy Church as a fresh expression of Church seems to be taking the Church north and South of the border by storm.

Messy Church in Dunglass, is one way to bring together people of all ages and assist in maintaining the community spirit. It is an opportunity for people to meet and share their skills, as well as being an informal and friendly way to worship. Monthly meetings will vary from arts and crafts, celebration, singing, enjoying a shared meal as well as:

*TO PROVIDE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR PEOPLE OF ALL AGES TO WORSHIP TOGETHER


*TO HELP PEOPLE OF ALL AGES FEEL THEY BELONG IN CHURCH AND TO EACH OTHER


*TO HELP PEOPLE HAVE FUN AND BE CREATIVE TOGETHER


*TO INTRODUCE JESUS THROUGH HOSPITALITY, FRIENDSHIP, STORIES AND WORSHIP

Messy Church is one church’s attempt to be church for families who might want to meet Jesus, belong to their local church and bring up their children as Christians but can’t cope with traditional Sunday morning church services.

It’s a once-a-month time of creativity, worship and eating together.

Adapted from www.messychurch.org.uk

For further info or to keep up with what we are doing, please visit www.messychurc.org.uk or www.dunglassparish.org, or better yet, come and be part of our Messy Church in the Parish of Dunglass!!!

—ENDS—

For further information contact: Rev Suzie Fletcher on 01368 830713

Note to editors:

Background information:

The first Messy Church began in 2004 when a group at St Wilfrid’s in Cowplain near Portsmouth were looking for a new way to reach out to the children and young families in their town. Messy Church is now happening in more that 500 churches in the UK and in five other countries as well.

So, what actually happens at Messy Church? Here’s an idea from St Wilifrid’s:

The hall is buzzing with conversation. Around a table adults and children burst into laughter as they wrestle with metallic tubing and googly eyes and their teenage helpers despair of ever creating the promised artefact.

A toddler slaps green paint on a huge sheet of card under the watchful eye of a Granny (not sure if they’re related or not – it doesn’t really matter). A five-year-old watches wide-eyed as an enthusiastic leader shows her how to bang in a nail.

There’s a delicious smell wafting out of the kitchen. The ten-year-olds, intent on their glass-painting, agree it must be jacket potatoes. The vicar takes a photo of the surreal result of the junk modelling and two mums catch up on the gossip as they drink welcome cups of tea and slowly decorate gift bags while their children make something unidentifiable but very chocolatey nearby.

The cooks should be getting the plates stacked, but one of the mums needs to talk about her problems with her foster children.

I would be panicking about the story for the celebration later, but there’s a huge collage of The Great Banquet to assemble before five o’clock, the powder paint has proved a formidable weapon of mess creation in the hands of Jack, and we’ve barely got started on the lettering and whoops, someone’s kicked over the gluepot…

Just another Messy Church.

The Background to Messy Church

(as told on www.messychurch.org.uk)

The first Messy Church began in 2004 when a group at St Wilfrid’s in Cowplain near Portsmouth were looking for a new way to reach out to the children and young families in their town.

We had lovely buildings and facilities but we weren’t using them enough. We had wonderful creative people in the church, and the area we lived in needed as much community-building as possible, being a rather featureless suburb.

There was a lot of sympathy towards church in general but the church wasn’t offering anything that really gripped the imagination of local families.

We decided very early on to try to do something for all ages together, partly out of a belief that we grow best as a church when we walk the journey with as many different people as possible, and partly from a desire to help families grow together in their walk of faith, not see Christianity as something you grow out of when you’re eleven.

The rest is history… a messy present… and an unknown future that you may well be part of too!

Welcome to Innerwick Village.

This is a website which gives some information and a bit of history for Innerwick Village and the surrounding area.