Three complete sessions for Lent, Holy Week and Easter, together with a wealth of activities to extend the range of excitingly messy activities for your Messy Church - creative prayers, games, food crafts, and ideas for organising an Easter trail. Craft templates and a session planning grid are included. Messy Church is a way of being church, for families and others. It is Christ-centred, for all ages, and based on creativity, hospitality and celebration. It is primarily designed for people who don't already belong to another form of church - no matter how 'messy' they feel their lives are. Research has shown that 40% of Messy Church families have had little or no prior contact with church and 61% of Messy Church families wouldn't otherwise be at church. BRF supports a global network of around 4,000 Messy Churches in six continents.

Three complete Messy Church sessions for Advent, Christmas and Epiphany, together with a wealth of creative activities and crafts to extend the range of excitingly messy activities for your Messy Church. Sections include creative Christmas prayers, global action suggestions, games and competitions, Christmas food crafts and many other ideas to take you on into the New Year.

An all-in-one introduction to Messy Church. When you need to introduce your children's workers, family coordinators and church leaders to the concept of all-involving, activity-based, new-to-church worship, this is the quick-to-read resource that explains it all. Starting Your Messy Church is structured into bite-sized sections which take you through the essentials of how to construct a strategy and put your plans to start your own Messy Church ministry into action. The book includes (among many other things) checklists, milestones and questions to ask of a Messy Church that you might visit, together with an honest and down-to-earth look at the 'Things we wish we'd known' from experienced Messy Church practitioners.

** Shortlisted for the NASEN Special Educational Needs Academic Book Award 2009 **

Inter-professional collaborations are invaluable relationships which can prevent the social exclusion of children and young people and are now a common feature of welfare policies worldwide.

Drawing on a four year study of the skills and understanding required of practitioners in order to establish the most effective interagency collaborations, this comprehensive text

• Gives examples from practitioners developing inter-professional practices allow readers to reflect on their relevance for their own work
• Emphasises what needs to be learnt for responsive inter-professional work and how that learning can be promoted
• Examines how professional and organisational learning are intertwined
• Suggests how organisations can provide conditions to support the enhanced forms of professional practices revealed in the study
• Reveals the professional motives driving the practices as well as how they are founded and sustained

Full of ideas to help shape collaborative inter-professional practice this book shows that specialist expertise is distributed across local networks. The reader is encouraged to develop the capacity to recognise the expertise of others and to negotiate theor work with others.

This book is essential reading for practitioners in education and educational psychology or social work, and offers crucial insights for local strategists and those involved in professional development work.

The book also has a great deal to offer researchers working in the area of cultural historical activity theory (CHAT). The four year study was framed by CHAT and offers a well-worked example of how CHAT can be used to reveal sense-making in new practices and the organizational implications of enhanced professional decision-making.

As well as being important contributors to the developing CHAT field, the five authors have worked in the area of social exclusion and professional learning for several years and have brought inter-disciplinary strengths to this account of inter-professional work.

The use of psychology in the classroom is a valuable tool for understanding and improving pupils' learning processes. This readable and informative book considers a range of contemporary issues including improving pupil motivation and understanding social dynamics in the classroom, and encourages teachers to conduct small-scale classroom investigations and to assess learning environments. It also provides a brief overview of the underlying psychological theory in each chapter and discusses the issues which are relevant to classroom practice, and provides practical examples and activities to support the text.

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Equipping your Messy team to pray and encourage others to do so, both within and outside the Messy Church context - Communicating prayer as a concept - Praying as a team in advance and on the day - Prayer ideas for the activity time, celebration time, and at home as a family - Ways of praying the Lord's Prayer - Ways to reimagine other traditional prayers - Creating a prayer space - A Messy Quiet Day outline

** Shortlisted for the NASEN Special Educational Needs Academic Book Award 2009 **

Inter-professional collaborations are invaluable relationships which can prevent the social exclusion of children and young people and are now a common feature of welfare policies worldwide.

Drawing on a four year study of the skills and understanding required of practitioners in order to establish the most effective interagency collaborations, this comprehensive text

• Gives examples from practitioners developing inter-professional practices allow readers to reflect on their relevance for their own work
• Emphasises what needs to be learnt for responsive inter-professional work and how that learning can be promoted
• Examines how professional and organisational learning are intertwined
• Suggests how organisations can provide conditions to support the enhanced forms of professional practices revealed in the study
• Reveals the professional motives driving the practices as well as how they are founded and sustained

Full of ideas to help shape collaborative inter-professional practice this book shows that specialist expertise is distributed across local networks. The reader is encouraged to develop the capacity to recognise the expertise of others and to negotiate theor work with others.

This book is essential reading for practitioners in education and educational psychology or social work, and offers crucial insights for local strategists and those involved in professional development work.

The book also has a great deal to offer researchers working in the area of cultural historical activity theory (CHAT). The four year study was framed by CHAT and offers a well-worked example of how CHAT can be used to reveal sense-making in new practices and the organizational implications of enhanced professional decision-making.

As well as being important contributors to the developing CHAT field, the five authors have worked in the area of social exclusion and professional learning for several years and have brought inter-disciplinary strengths to this account of inter-professional work.

IVP Readers' Choice Award We like the idea of community, but where do we start? The Messy Church series provides resources to help your church bring together people of all ages and stages of faith, allowing them to experience a creative and fun-filled Christian community. Messy Church, the first book in the series, offers your church a tool to create a unique, come-as-you-are experience built on creativity--allowing space for all to play and create celebration--worshiping God and his redeeming work in Jesus hospitality--sharing a meal where all are welcome This complete resource helps you share the love of God and his people with families in your community, creating an opportunity for connection and learning in a fun and welcoming environment. With instructions for starting a program at your church, Messy Church includes fifteen sessions for use throughout the year. Let's get messy!

This book describes the two main features of the Messy Nativity Advent Project as carried out in Liverpool in 2010: 1. Small knitted sheep go on a journey around local communities. Messy Churches and parishes pass nativity sets from home to home and each host receives a small knitted sheep to keep and remind them of the nativity story and the real meaning of Christmas. The nativity set travels around town through the season of Advent and ends up back at church on Christmas Eve for an all-age service or event. 2. The Sheep Trail. Hunt for the knitted sheep in designated stores around town and complete the leaflet, entering your details for the prize draw and taking home a colouring picture, maze and the nativity story. Messy Nativity gives all the information and resources needed for a church to embark on their own Messy Nativity project.

Chocolate bunnies, marshmallow chicks, colored eggs, and baskets are a lot of fun, but is that really what this season is all about? The new resource Messy Easter offers your church a tool to bring together people of all ages and stages of faith for a unique come-as-you-are experience of creativity--allowing space for all to play and create celebration--worshiping God and his redeeming work in Jesus hospitality--sharing a meal where all are welcome These three once-a-month sessions include ideas for activities, games, crafts, food, and much more to help us learn about Lent, Holy Week, and Easter in an excitedly messy way! This season, give your community the gift of a Messy Church! The Messy Church series provides resources to help your church bring together people of all ages and stages of faith, allowing them to experience a creative and fun-filled Christian community.

Christmas can be complicated. Parties, gifts, and family tensions dominate the season. So maybe it's time we explore what Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany are really about. The Messy Church series provides resources to help your church bring together people of all ages and stages of faith, allowing them to experience a creative and fun-filled Christian community. Messy Christmas offers your church a tool to create a unique, come-as-you-are experience built on creativity--allowing space for all to play and create celebration--worshiping God and his redeeming work in Jesus hospitality--sharing a meal where all are welcome These three once-a-month sessions include Christmas prayers, global action suggestions, games and competitions, Christmas food crafts, and many other ideas to experience joy during this time of the year. This season, give your community the gift of a messy church!