Transforming Mission Camborne's vicar surprises with 'new youth work numbers'

 An interesting letter in the Church Times today from the Rev Rosheen Browning, Priest in Charge at Camborne, Cornwall, where one of the county's Transforming Mission programmes is being rolled out. Rev Browning says numbers at toddler groups and holiday clubs show that engagement with young people has vastly increased in her five-church cluster's work, pushing back at critics suggesting the scheme is not quite the success expected as large numbers of new worshippers have not materialised.  These figures contradict a Diocesan document produced in October 2018, which details extensive youth work across Camborne Cluster before the Transforming Mission programme was started there.

In the Church Times, however, Rev. Browning writes that an increased engagement with young people in a deprived area indicates the programme has a 'sustainable future'. The churches in her cluster - Camborne, Penponds, Tuckingmill, Crowan and Treslothan - engaged on a regular basis with just 20 children a month before Transforming Mission, she says. 

On average, this would work out at just five a week. 

This figures is in sharp contrast to those previously produced by the Diocese. In Archdeacon Audrey Elkington's document written in October 2018 - see left -  ahead of the appointment of an Interim Priest in the Cluster, extensive youth contacts are detailed across the Cluster - including Sunday Schools, links with local primary schools and assemblies.

Rev Rosheen Browning was Assistant Curate of Paddock Wood (Rochester), before she was appointed Interim Priest-in-Charge of Camborne, Tuckingmill and Penponds, and of Crowan and Treslothan in June 2019. She was confirmed as Priest-in-Charge and Transforming Mission lead a year later.