Holy Hotdogs and Praise Him Pizza are just two of the items on the menu in Camborne on a Tuesday after school – and the kids are lining up to get some.

During covid, with a youth worker recently recruited and no clubs running, Camborne Cluster of Churches was wondering how it was going to continue reaching out to children, young people and families when the world was shut away. It was then that the idea of giving out hotdogs outside of the church came about.

This simple gesture quickly became ‘Tea Time on Tuesdays’ and once restrictions were lifted, families and teenagers were invited to drop into the church hall on their way home from school to pick up some tasty treats.

Fast forward almost four years and the church now regularly see 80 to 100 teens every week plus younger children with parents. The menu has grown too, and it now includes a variety of hot and cold food with homemade cakes being supplied by an army of volunteers from across the cluster’s five churches.

Revd Rosheen Browning said: “It has just evolved. We tried things out and responded rather than imposed. We learnt that it’s better to provide food people will actually eat instead of food we might personally consider ‘healthy’. It’s our job to share Christ’s love, not take the moral high ground and share healthy eating tips! Healthy Cornwall do come and join in with us on occasion!

“As well as the children we have got to know the parents and we know we’re getting it right because they keep coming back for more.”

Revd Graham Adamson, who was previously based in the cluster but is now deanery Mission Enabler and Rural Dean, says: “We do get asked why they don’t come to church on Sundays. I reply by inviting those asking to join us on a Tuesday! The truth is that it will all happen in God’s time. It is not a straight line on a project graph. And it does beg the question, what would worship look like if they did?”

As well as Holy Hotdogs, Camborne Church also hosts a clothes bank which is run by two local residents.

Graham said: “We don’t run the clothes bank; we support them by providing our church as a venue and we support them when they ask us to. It’s an equal footing partnership. Those running it are not serving the ‘other’. This is their community.”

This partnership has also led to other bridges being built with Healthy Cornwall and Wellbeing Workers regularly being invited into church.

All of this work is part of the work being done under the umbrella of Transforming Mission (TM) Camborne. Starting from relatively little in 2019, it is now a cluster of five churches working together to grow their churches and support their communities.

Revd Rosheen says: “Each church community brings their unique way of doing things when responding to their local context. We have a plan, but we also listen to culture and listen to the Spirit. We try things out and see what works and we are starting to see a lot of little seeds of success.”