A NEW pastor has joined Eastwood Road Evangelical Church, in Rayleigh, and hopes to attract more dynamic young people to his congregation.

Andrew Mumford, 34, has plans to transform the church after he moved down from Ipswich with his family.

These include setting up a mother and toddler group and the possibility of Christianity Explored courses.

He said: "Basically we are hoping to turn it around and get some younger people in the church.

"Years ago it used to be really full, but it has dwindled down a bit.

"We are trying to raise the profile of the church in the community through leafleting and various other things."

The Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches has a working group to help smaller churches and has already assessed the church's surrounding area.

It will then follow this up with a plan of how to attract more people to the congregation.

Mr Mumford also has the backing of his wife Carolyn, 31, who worked as a breast feeding supporter for Surestart Ipswich.

They now hope to set up a breast feeding support group through the church to encourage young mums through the doors.

This should be boosted by the fact that they have a young family of two children themselves - Daniel, six, and Hannah, three, who are all settling into Rayleigh.

He said: "I'm hoping we can turn it around. It will be a little bit of a challenge but we hope we can do it by reaching out into the community."