Holy Habits meets Messy Church! And look what results: eleven new ways of doing Messy Vintage – that's Messy Church for older people. The Holy Habits approach that's sweeping through churches explores Luke’s model of being church that's found in Acts 2:42–47.
Authors Lucy Moore and Andrew Roberts in their new book Holy Habits in Messy Church (BRF, 2020), published this week, identify the ten habits and encourage the development of a way of life formed by them with a Messy Church slant.
The ten habits are: biblical teaching, fellowship, breaking bread, prayer, sharing resources, serving, eating together, gladness and generosity, worship and making more disciples.
Research shows that children learn better 'by doing more than just talking
so a fun themed activity suggestion for the group is provided,' writes Lucy in her introduction, arguing that the Messy Vintage suggestions are along very similar lines but just using 'a shorter outline for each session and a simplified celebration, suitable for where the majority of people are older or space is more limited' (such as in a care home lounge).
Eleven Messy Vintage outlines cover topics such as the Jesus Habit, Gladness and Generosity, Making More Disciples, Serving, Eating Together and Breaking Bread, to name but a few.
All the material has been created to help churches explore the Holy Habits in a Messy Church context and live them out in whole-life, missional discipleship.
Be creative
Andrew Roberts makes the case in the opening pages for using such materials as you would Lego. 'Yes, there are guidelines and, yes, there is a certain amount of received wisdom about what might work well. But with both (Messy Church and Holy Habits) there is also a strong encouragement to be creative, imaginative and contextual.'
We already offer you twelve Messy Vintage sessions to download for free here.
Why not move on to the next eleven detailed in this new book, published on 24 January from BRFonline.
On my recent rip to Sheffield I heard about a Messy Vintage group doing church this way there… Watch this space for yet more Messy Vintage resources coming on stream later this year. We're working on it!