A ministry of smallness
How one course changed Ali’s path
Mosaic Easter Story created by members of the community.
Ali Mascarenhas attributes her start as a pioneer to Pioneering Parishes.
by Rev Tina Hodgett
Ali attended one of our earliest courses and took our content and ran with us. We’ve told her story to lots of different groups of people round the country (and the world via our website), and she’s contributed to every First Steps course we’ve put on online. Her story has inspired hundreds of people and helped them realise that pioneering is something ordinary people can do. We featured her slow but steady transformation of the churchyard at St Mary’s Brighstone in the Isle of Wight into an outdoor place of encounter with God through community scrub clearance and establishment of a beautiful Biblical olive garden where Celtic Encounter worship services take place outside in summer months. She excitedly shared with us all the gorgeous mosaic art projects – Celtic cross, advent calendar, nativity scene and many others, that were made by members of the local community learning the skill of glass art together working inside the ancient church building on long tables, coming together for companionship and creativity.
Over the five years since Ali set off from very small beginnings she has continued to carefully discern where the breadcrumbs the Holy Spirit lays down have led. Recently she and her lay worship leader companion who creates beautiful Celtic liturgy have planted two new small Celtic Encounter congregations in a local village (which had no Christian expression of worship) and the town of Yarmouth. She calls this a ‘ministry of smallness’.
Ali was commissioned last year as a Lay Pioneer by the Director of Ministry at the Diocese of Portsmouth in a church full of community members. She has facilitated over the years a wide variety of talks on aspects of creation care and the environment, and has a programme for this summer including bird-watching, wild orchids of the Isle of Wight and dinosaurs which inhabited the area 125 million years ago!
The latest mosaic project is intended for the annual church Christmas Tree Festival which will be on the Narnia theme of C S Lewis’ book ‘The Lion, Witch and Wardrobe’. She writes: ‘You’re going to be able to walk through the wardrobe to Narnia and be greeted by a ‘mosaicked’ Aslan, Mr Tumnus and the beavers by the lamppost and you can have your photo taken with them.’ Ali herself hopes to arrange some storytelling of the book and to explain the Christian message of the book in various ways along with dressing up as the character of Queen Susan with a bow and quiver strapped to her back. In a wide range of ways that are appropriate to the rural island context Ali and her team (made up of members of both church and community) are putting the church at the heart of the village and enabling opportunities for encounter by all ages of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Find out about how you can shift the energy of your church outwards through the Pioneering Parishes book: Into All the Parish: Pioneering Practices for Every Local Church.
