I Can't! I just can't do it!

The alternate title for this post could easily be, "Yet another reason why we need Messy Church."

I had the joy of facilitating our Children in Worship time for the K4-K5 group this past Sunday. I had a larger group than usual, but as usual, they cracked me up. We talked about what we looked forward to most about Thanksgiving. The unanimous vote is the turkey. Although I wonder if we don't love the anticipation of the turkey more than the actual turkey... but that's another story. And I've wandered off topic.

After I read them a Bible story, I gave them each a can of play dough with the simple instructions of make something that has to do with the story we just shared. I read the story of the lost sheep and the lost coin. One child asked if I wanted them to make all 100 sheep. I said "Sure!" He said, "maybe we can just make 10?" Some of the kids got right to work. Let's just say we started with a lot of, "Look I made a coin!" Ha! Smart kids! But this is also where I think Messy Church becomes so important...

Like I said, the sheep weren't perfect!

When given a blob of play dough and asked to create, I heard several cries of "I don't know how" and even worse, "I Can't!!" And that makes me sad! I didn't ask for anything specific and I certainly didn't ask for anything to be perfect. I simply wanted them to have the freedom to create in response to the story. And that scares many of our kids. There are no instructions, no steps to follow, and no expectations. Just try it! See what happens! And if you don't like it, how easy is it to start over?! None of our play dough sheep were perfect by any stretch, but perfection wasn't the point. But I really hated hearing "I can't!" from 5 year-olds!

We need kids to have as many opportunities to create something out of nothing. To build something from scratch and imagine. To try something, smush it up, and start over. To learn from mistakes and not worry about perfection or even following instructions. It's how they learn to problem solve and how they grow into adults who create new things and imagine new solutions.

As we plan for Messy Church events, I hope one thing we do is give kids the freedom to be messy - not perfect - and reward them for their imagination. I hope we give the opportunity to create new things. And I hope we never let kids get by with saying "I can't!"