Revd Vanessa Conant, Rector of St Mary’s and the Parish of Walthamstow, writes:  

There’s an online joke about Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York City that everyone wants to claim him as their mayor, no matter how far from NYC they might be. His term of office seems to have brought an injection of positive hopefulness and practical action, combined with a joyful pride in what makes New York City great. In some polls, Mamdani’s approval ratings are as high as 69% among the city’s residents – almost unheard of for a politician. 

Mamdani’s ambitions for New York City are high. He is bringing in sweeping changes to childcare provision, huge and transformative affordable housing projects and free bus fares across large parts of the city. If successful, some of these projects will take years to realise, but perhaps it is the small things – the quick actions that make a genuine difference to people’s everyday lives – which are winning the affection and approval of his constituents. 

Over 200,000 potholes have been fixed and repairs to broken park equipment now happen just days after reporting; every parent is offered 4 hours of free after-school care to go on a date, to run an errand, or to rest; there are new bins to reduce a rat problem; and free tickets for residents are being made available to the opera, to the theatre, to the New York Knicks. 

These are not major systemic changes – the reality is that the ambitious, large-scale plans face many funding and process obstacles – but these small things are making a tangible difference to the well-being of the city’s residents and are restoring a sense of hope. 

Along these same lines, I recently read that Martin Lewis (the money saving expert) was setting up something called the Small Ideas Initiative, where members of the UK public could suggest small policy or practical changes for the government to consider writing into law. 

Already thousands of suggestions have been made, ranging from simplifying care-home costs to universal allergy symbols on menus and standardizing council forms. Anyone can submit an idea which will be scrutinized, researched, and then, if deemed to be viable, presented to a cross-party board of MPs with the potential to be made into public policy. 

The initiative seeks ideas which are low-cost, non-partisan, have widespread appeal, and are hard to disagree with. Small wins. 

Nestled within one of the most challenging and complicated parables in the Gospels – the Parable of the Shrewd Manager in Luke 16 – are Jesus’ words: ‘Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.’ 

Rather than being insignificant or a distraction, the management and care of small matters reflects a heart of dedication and faithfulness. It can be easy to feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the world’s needs and challenges, and to feel inadequate in our response. How are my actions mitigating or reducing the impact of climate change, we might ask, or how am I making a difference to people who are homeless? How am I preventing or responding to war? Our smallness, our powerlessness, can sometimes feel debilitating and depressing. 

In these moments, it is helpful to me to think of the value that small actions can have in restoring hope and in making a small, tangible difference to the people around me. These small actions can be a sign of my faithfulness, an offering of my devotion. 

I think about the time someone offers on a Saturday night, serving guests at the Night Shelter, or helping at the Kindwell Food Share on Sunday evenings. I think of the people who volunteer to help deliver a children’s ministry session or make a youth group evening possible. I think about the companionship a person offers to a stranger struggling with paperwork at the Walthamstow Welcomes cafe. I think about the word of welcome and friendship someone offers to those who are newly arrived at our church. Or the way someone cares for a corner of our churchyard, the choice someone makes in their daily life to protect the planet, or the ways in which people put others before themselves. 

These countless, small, faithful actions, when we really reflect on them – when we see them all together – inject hope, and are bigger than they might at first seem. 

I pray that we, at St Mary’s, are always a Small Ideas Initiative – a community which keeps thinking about how to make our church and wider world a better place to belong to and live in – a community which is always wondering about those things which can make a tangible difference to our neighbours. 

To that end, I would love to hear your ideas for small changes that we could implement at St Mary’s and across our parish – so please don’t hesitate to share them. 

And I pray we are faithful in the small things – that we are people who are daily growing in integrity and wisdom – while also working for the big vision of the Kingdom, too. 

With love 

Vanessa