There’s snow discouragement… ski church growing

A skiing ministry in a village in the Swiss Alps is continuing to grow after almost 40 years, having developed from a small chaplaincy programme into a thriving church.

Verbier, a small village 1,500 metres above sea-level with a population of about 3,000 permanent residents, is a top ski and summer resort which hosts many English-speaking residents and holidaymakers, in which a small-scale winter chaplaincy programme was formed in 1986.

The venture has grown substantially since then, surely beyond the imagination of founders Leslie Ratcliffe and Sandy Millar, with the programme taken over first by David Steele and then re-established as the English-Speaking Church (ESC), Verbier in 2009 by Andrew Baines and the late Tim Mullins. Over 50 people now attend the church, following 15 years of steady growth.