A thank-you for your Messy Church volunteers: a photo of a trestle table covered in glue sticks, paper plates and glitter before the doors open, or a row of drying paper lanterns on the church hall windowsill, as a jigsaw

Written by the team behind Puzzlify. Puzzlify is our product, so weigh what follows with that in mind. We've tried to make this useful even if you never use it. We're not affiliated with Messy Church, BRF, any parish council, parochial church council, diocese, cathedral, church, chapel, churches trust, sponsor, school or community organisation.

It's twenty past three on a Wednesday in late October, and the church hall smells of poster paint and baked potatoes. A retired primary school secretary called Brenda is unfolding the last trestle table and covering it with a plastic cloth that has survived at least forty sessions of glitter. A sixth-former called Amir, who started helping for his Duke of Edinburgh award and never left, is counting out paper plates, lolly sticks and glue sticks into little trays, one for each table. In the kitchen, a semi-retired plumber called Gareth is checking the oven timer and quietly worrying that there won't be enough cheese. By four o'clock the hall will be full of toddlers, parents, grandparents and a few teenagers who claim they only came for the food. By six, the floor will be covered in tissue paper, and Brenda will be on her knees with a dustpan, smiling.

If you want to say thank you to people like Brenda, Amir and Gareth, this is a guide to doing it well, with or without a puzzle.

Who we mean

Messy Church is a widely used way for churches to welcome families: usually a regular session, often monthly, with crafts and activities, a short time of celebration with a story, a song or a prayer, and a meal eaten together. Many churches run it; others run something similar under a different name, such as a family café, an after-school club or an all-age afternoon. The volunteers behind it might:

• plan each session around a theme or a Bible story, and work out which crafts will actually survive contact with a three-year-old
• buy, sort and store the craft materials, often in a cupboard that is never quite big enough
• set out tables, cover them, and put them all away again afterwards
• run a craft table, an activity or a game, and explain it again and again with endless patience
• lead the short celebration time, with a story, a song, a prayer or a bit of drama
• cook and serve a meal for dozens of people, and cope with allergies, picky eaters and someone who has brought a surprise extra family
• welcome families at the door, sign people in, and help newcomers find a table
• follow the church's safeguarding arrangements, and keep an eye out for anyone who seems on their own
• sweep up glitter, wash up the plates and take the recycling home

Why a thank-you matters here

Messy Church can look effortless from the outside, which is the point. Families arrive, there is something to do on every table, the food is hot and everyone goes home with a soggy paper creation. Nobody sees the planning meeting on a Monday evening, the trip to the cash and carry, the craft that was tested at home and quietly abandoned, the three hours of setting up and clearing away, or the volunteer who has done it every month for years while working full time. Many volunteers are parents or grandparents themselves; others haven't had small children in the house for decades and still turn up. A thank-you tells them that the welcome was noticed, and that someone's child went home happy because of them.

A little honest background

It helps to get the basics right, because volunteers often care a great deal about how their church does things, and they know the families well.

Arrangements vary a great deal between churches and traditions. Some churches use the Messy Church name and resources and are part of the wider network; others run their own family sessions and call them something else entirely. Some meet in a church hall, others in a school, a community centre or the church itself with the pews pushed back. Some volunteers are members of the congregation; others are parents who came as visitors and offered to help. Please don't assume your church does it the way another church does.

Children and families are at the heart of it, which means safeguarding matters. Most churches have rules about photographs of children, about who can be alone with children, and about sharing families' details. Respecting that is part of saying thank you well. So please don't photograph children or families without clear permission from the church and the parents, don't share photos of the session on social media unless the church says you can, and don't put any child's name, school or face in a thank-you puzzle that isn't yours to share. If in doubt, photograph the empty tables, the craft trays or the drying lanterns before or after the session, rather than the people.

Food is another area where churches tend to follow guidance, for example on hygiene, allergies and labelling. It's kind not to bring in homemade food for the families without asking first, however well meant, because the cooks may be carefully managing allergies you don't know about.

If you'd like to give money in their honour, ask the church office or the treasurer how the church prefers donations to be made, for example towards craft materials, the food budget or new tables, rather than handing cash to an individual for the church.

Ask before you take photos, and take them outside the session. Keep children, families, sign-in sheets, allergy lists, rotas with names and phone numbers, visitors and car number plates out of the frame.

What makes a good photo

• a trestle table covered in glue sticks, paper plates, pipe cleaners and glitter, set out before the doors open
• a row of drying paper lanterns, salt-dough shapes or painted stones on the hall windowsill
• the craft cupboard with its labelled tubs, if the team is happy for you to open it
• the hatch from the kitchen, with a tray of baked potatoes or a stack of clean plates ready to go
• the hall after everyone has gone, with tissue paper on the floor and a single dustpan propped against a chair
• the volunteer team together after the session, only if every one of them has agreed to be photographed and no children are in shot

Getting the JPG right

Use a JPG, sharp and well lit. Church halls often have strip lights that make everything look slightly green, so if you can, use daylight from a window and switch off the overheads for a moment. Tap to focus on the craft table rather than the bright window behind it. Hold your phone steady, or rest it on a chair. Turn off flash: it bounces off glitter and plastic tablecloths and turns them into a white glare. Bright crafts can look oversaturated, so if the colours look too loud, tap on the table and drag the brightness down slightly.

Privacy and an optional PIN

Puzzlify puzzles are private links. You can add an optional PIN so only the person you send it to can open it. Photos aren't used to train AI and aren't shared with third parties.

Say it's from you

Put your name, or your family's, the craft team's, the kitchen team's or the church's, in the note at the end so they know who sent it. A puzzle that ends with "from the family who came for the first time in the rain and stayed for pudding, thank you" is a thank-you, not a mystery.

Piece counts

Craft tables are colourful and full of detail, which makes them good puzzle photos, but a lot of glitter and small objects can be hard on a phone screen. Choose 24 or 48 for children or a quick smile, and save the bigger counts for a tablet or a computer.

How to send it

Make the puzzle, write the note, publish the link, and send it by email or message, or print the link as a QR code inside a card. The recipient doesn't need an account or an app; it plays in the browser on a phone, tablet or computer. The note appears when the last piece clicks into place. If you're thanking the whole team, one link can go to the church office or the Messy Church leader to pass on, or you can print the QR code on a card and leave it by the kitchen hatch.

Note examples

• "Thank you for every Wednesday you spent sweeping up glitter so that our children could make a mess."
• "To Brenda: forty sessions on the same tablecloth, and you still smile at the glue. We noticed."
• "To Gareth: thank you for the baked potatoes. There was always enough cheese."
• "To Amir: our son still talks about the volcano you helped him make."
• "From the family who came for the first time in the rain: thank you for finding us a table."
• "From the parents: thank you for giving us an hour where someone else did the crafts."

What it costs, plainly

The preview is free, so you can see how it looks before deciding anything. Publishing the link costs one credit (€3.99), or less per puzzle with a bundle. It's a digital puzzle, not a printed or cardboard one, so nothing arrives in the post. If a card and a few sentences feel like enough, they are.

Ideas that are not a puzzle

• a card made by your children, handed in at the next session, if they'd like to make one
• staying behind to help stack the tables and sweep the floor
• a donation in their honour towards craft materials or the food budget, given the way the church prefers, with a note saying why
• offering to help in the kitchen or on a craft table, if the team would like an extra pair of hands and you're happy to follow the church's safeguarding arrangements
• a short letter to the parish magazine or newsletter naming the team and what the sessions mean to your family
• telling the vicar, minister or churchwardens what the team does, so that their work is noticed by people who can say so publicly

Where Puzzlify fits

Puzzlify turns a personal photo into a private digital jigsaw that you send as a link. It isn't a printed puzzle, and it isn't a public puzzle board: only the people you send it to can open it. It's one option among many, and it works best when the photo means something to the person receiving it.

If a photo puzzle feels right as well, choose the craft table before the doors open, the drying lanterns on the windowsill or an old photo of the empty hall next to a new one, take it with the church's permission and outside the session, keep children, families, sign-in sheets, allergy lists and people's details out of the frame, pick a piece count that suits them, and write the note in your own words. You can make a free preview here and decide later whether to send it.

Whatever you send, the most important part is the sentence that sounds like you, written to the person who sets out the glue sticks and sweeps up the glitter, so that a hall full of families can make a mess together and go home feeling welcome.

Written by the small team behind Puzzlify (info@puzzlify.app). Not legal, religious, safeguarding, food hygiene, allergy, financial, insurance, health and safety, copyright, photography permission or gift policy advice. Check your own church's guidance on gifts, photos, children and people's details.