This book by Paul Moore is an excellently concise, accessible, affirming, practical, and thoroughly biblical discussion of how Messy Churches are meeting people at different points on their journeys of exploring, discovering, and developing faith. It's bookended by a helpfully balanced consideration of what discipleship is (which lemme tell you, as a member of a team who've been trying to define this while we've been studying Messy Church, is not easy), how this can be maintained through Christian community, sustained and encouraged at homes, and made workable in ways inclusive of all various ages, with solid pepperings of example practices, activities and so on to give messy discipleship roots in the hearts of attenders. The intervening chapters dive deeper in scripture to look at what discipleship, or following God's plan, looks like in the Old and New Testaments; and while by no means deviating from being anything less than a brilliant layperson's resource in terms of non-jargonfulness, there is a great richness of theological weight in these and often consideredly related to the on-the-ground realities of running Messy Churches. A great little book, both for those involved with Messy Church who want to think through how to make it churchier without changing its nature, and for those maybe sceptical of Messy Churches as being viable vehicles of Spirit-led growth and renewal. There will be learning points for anyone in church leadership here.
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