Sara and Sam had a wonderful time at the 2025 Messy Church International Conference in High Leigh. It was a joy to meet with people from all over the world who are passionare about uniting diverse congregations in truly intergenerational worship.

Below are some of the resources we used.

The Body Song

The theme of the conference was All Together, and we spent good amount of time in 1 Corinthians 12, so it meant that The Body Song was a must! We taught this on the Saturday afternoon and then used it in the closing celebration on Sunday.

Saturday

We began Saturday morning singing Fred Bock's Be Still and Know, a capella. We increasingly find that simple, unaccompanied songs are a great way of uniting people and escaping the reliance on instruments and technology.

Later that morning we ran a workshop on Simple Singing. We began with the Peruvian Gloria.

We also demonstrated simple songs such as:

  • Multipart Songs
    • In The Woods (ideal for outdoor worship - we used this later in the celebration)
    • El Roi (Sara's new song, focussed on the God who sees and hears us)

Outdoor Celebration

In the "Messy Church Goes Wild" session, Sara led a station based on "phototropism" (see the Light session in Worship in the Woods, pages 11-12). We then sang the Peruvian Gloria and began the gathered worship with  "In The Woods".

Sunday

We began the Sunday morning teaching our Tapestry (Weave Us Together) song - initially just the congregation part without the solo vocal.

Our second workshop was on Intergenerational Singing. We began with some of our Whole Church Worship teaching, and then demonstrated the following ideas:

  • Verbal Contributions
    • God Our Father (using the refrain from this Lord's Prayer song, interspersed with inviting people to speak out places/people/situations where they want to see God's Kingdom come)

Final Celebration

As the conference came to a close we sang The Body Song, Tapestry (Weave Us Together), Resound Worship's "Living Bread", and finished up with “We Go With Jesus”.