Third time lucky - delayed Carnmarth North synod sees On The Way plan approved

 

A bleak night in Portreath, Cornwall, saw Carnmarth North deanery plan voted  through after two delays. Initially Rural Dean Caspar Bush and his team failed to submit it in time for Episcopal College approval before the June synod meeting. Then following the death of the Queen, the 9 September 2022 synod  was postponed.

On Tuesday 18 October, Rev Bush finally saw the On The Way plan approved which will see him as Rural Dean Tsar head up a new 'On The Way' unit swallowing up Transforming Mission Camborne. His former curate Rev Graham Adamson becomes a 'peripatetic' vicar across Carnmarth North's 18 churches. As one clergyman from Camborne bravely said at the Synod, a fair amount of the Church Commissioners' Lowest Income Community funding - which will finance this new roaming position - will be spent on his petrol costs.

Rev Adamson will also in an odd twist be overseeing the work of his former boss Rev Rosheen Browning, priest in charge at Camborne, who has steered Transforming Mission into rocky waters since her appointment in 2019.

The meeting started with a admission by Rev Bush that the Minutes of the June 2022 synod did not reflect dissent and opposition to the plan voiced at that meeting. He gave an undertaking that the Minutes would be adjusted accordingly to record that various arguments were made against the plan.

Save The Parish Cornwall's Neil Wallis and Susan Roberts were given two-minute slots at the start of discussion to voice their views - time slots meticulously monitored by Rev Bush on his mobile phone. Deanery synod representatives - and clergy - in favour of the plan were allowed in contrast to speak at length.

Neil Wallis said that people had worked hard at the plan but the problem was they were answering the wrong question. The right question was how to use a wealth of funding from the Church Commissioners to employ more priests, not fewer.  Money from the Church Commissioners' Lowest Income Community Fund was basically being used to bankroll Transforming Mission Mark 2.

 Susan Roberts said that people had been exhausted by the lengthy and painful negotiations over the On The Way plan, which had not truly involved local people. They had expected to be consulted: in fact there had been a minimal effort to hear their views - just one public meeting in each church.  She also said that the plan was predicated around parishes paying levels of MMF (Mission and Ministry Fund) that were completely unrealistic. In other words, people were being asked to vote for a plan which which had failure in-built.

The Rt Rev Hugh Nelson, Bishop of St Germans, sent a message endorsing the plan and saying that people had been called to find 'a new way of being church'. This is a question which has exercised Bishop Hugh over the past few months - particularly at the September Diocesan Synod. His speech then did not alas inspire confidence, as the reaction on Facebook shows.