Moderator's Blog - CW - United Reformed Church

The joys of visiting

Laurence Wareing — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 09:52:46 +0000

When I talk to people with no knowledge of the URC about what it is to be Moderator of General Assembly, one description I use is that I am in some ways an internal and external ambassador of the URC.

External is probably self-explanatory, I am a face of the URC to other bodies. As an internal “ambassador” I see my role in part as representing the URC to itself – visiting churches and other organisations within the denomination and taking a message from one to another.

Each congregation has its own character but they are all joined by a common thread of love of our Lord. I think I might also say that a very common theme is cake or a more substantial meal after the service. So often we find we can talk to each other more easily over a shared meal.

Dulwich and Solihull invited me to join their celebrations of anniversaries, and we considered during our services how the church community is part of the wider community in which it is set. As Jeremiah urged, they have built houses and planted gardens, seeking the peace and prosperity of the city as if it prospered so would they.

Going “home”

It was a particular pleasure for me to lead worship at Northgate URC in Darlington, the church in which I grew up and first professed my faith in Christ on becoming a member. We had a joint congregation from the Tees and Swale pastorate of people from Northgate, Northallerton’s Zion URC and Low Row URC. During our service we considered community as well – the danger of dividing people into an “us” and “them”.

On the one hand, this was in the context of the URC. There is no “them” who do things and make decisions that affect the “us”. We are all the “them” from the pews and pulpits who contribute to the Synod, General Assembly and the committees of General Assembly who, with the Lord’s guidance, make those decisions.

We also considered the more dangerous “us” and “them” that is creeping into our society as a whole. Again, looking at Jeremiah’s message, the Jews in exile were told to pray for strangers who were just as deserving of God’s love as those who are strangers to us.

Planting gardens and seeking peace

Zion URC invited me to see their beautiful Secret Garden – a community garden lying beside the church. It may have the name of Secret but it’s very much a place where the community is welcomed with an open heart. I am a very poor gardener but can appreciate the nooks and crannies that have created spaces for conversation, for thought, for enjoying the beauty of flowers and vegetables. At Zion they have put into practice Jeremiah’s message to plant gardens and seek the peace and prosperity of the city.

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General Assembly Moderator welcomes Gaza ceasefire

Ann-Marie Nye — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 10:57:26 +0000

Catriona Wheeler, Moderator of the United Reformed Church General Assembly, has welcomed the progress in talks between Palestinians and the government of the State of Israel.

The General Assembly of the United Reformed Church has consistently called for peace in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory based on our belief that all people are created by God with inherent value and dignity.

The announcement of the “first phase” of a peace deal is dependent on further agreement and action by the State of Israel’s government and Hamas. We pray that it will be a turning point, with an end to killing and a beginning of a better life for all those who have been so badly affected by violence; losing loved ones, experiencing life-changing injuries and psychological trauma, being forced to leave their homes, losing livelihoods and the fracturing of communities.

True peace in the Holy Land will take much more than a ceasefire.

In recent years, we have sent groups from the URC to the Holy Land on visits to observe what life is like for Israelis and Palestinians. We have built relationships with people who live in the area.

Led by this, our General Assembly in 2021 recognised that Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, forced house demolitions, and the acquisition of land by coercion are breaches of international law. General Assembly, therefore, urges the Israeli Government to abide by international law and reverse its de facto annexation of the occupied Palestinian territory.

This year at our General Assembly, it was noted that despite previous moves towards peaceful solutions, “atrocities have continued”, citing the Israeli Government’s breaches of ceasefire agreements and the deliberate blockade of aid, resulting in the deaths of thousands of civilians.

We commend the World Council of Churches statement made this summer, which calls for an end to “apartheid, occupation, and impunity in Palestine and Israel”.

So, while we welcome the chance for peace and the end to suffering in Gaza, we will continue to call for pray and work for a true and lasting peace through dialogue and diplomacy, where the voices of those who have been most affected by the conflict are heard and respected.

A prayer:

God of peace,

How long, O Lord, how long?

We give thanks for any lessening of gunfire and bombardment;
for fragile steps towards quieter skies over Gaza.
Yet we dare not call this silence ‘peace’.

You are the One who hears the cries beneath the rubble,
who weeps with the displaced and the bereaved.

You know that peace is not the absence of war,
but the presence of justice,
the sheltering of every life,
the mending of what once was torn.

Guard us from false assurances, O God,
from leaders who declare “peace, peace”
when there is no real peace. [Jeremiah 6:14]

Stir the hearts of those in power
to listen to the wounded,
to reckon with wrongs done
and to labour for a just, lasting and equitable peace
for all your children — Israeli and Palestinian alike.

Let swords be beaten into ploughshares,
let tears be turned to dancing
and let the Land once more be Holy;
a place where people and planet live and flourish in dignity.

Come, O Prince of Peace.
Make it real.
Make it last.
Make it just.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.

A congregrational version of the prayer for use in worship is available to download for free, here.

Main image: Chris Hearn/Unsplash.

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The induction of Catriona Wheeler as Moderator of the General Assembly

Neil Hunter — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 09:36:30 +0000

“Will you undertake to exercise your ministry in accordance with the statement concerning the Nature, Faith and Order of the United Reformed Church?

“I will, and all these things I profess and promise in the power of the Holy Spirit.”

With this induction affirmation, followed by promises by members of the General Assembly and prayers, Catriona Wheeler was inducted as the Moderator of the General Assembly 2025-2026, during an act of worship at the close of the 2025 General Assembly. The service was led by the new Moderator’s Chaplain, the Revd Jane Wade, Minister of Abington Avenue URC and the Northampton Area Churches Partnership. Jane also serves as Deputy Moderator of the East Midlands Synod.

The Revd Geoffrey Clarke, Moderator of the East Midlands Synod, gave the charge during the Induction of Catriona.

Called beyond comfort

The sermon reminded the Assembly of its dissenting roots, the weight of empty nets and the grace that calls us beyond comfort.

The members of your East Midlands Synod family are delighted in your appointment and will seek to pray for you and encourage you in this important role, Geoffrey began. He used a trio of striking biblical images: a furnace, a fishing boat, and a charcoal fire.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, standing before the threat of death, chose the costly act of dissent. Their refusal to kneel evoked the DNA of a church born from dissent: ministers ejected in 1662, voices raised in assemblies, Synods and church meetings throughout history. God’s presence was not outside the furnace, but within it. “Even in the furnace,” Geoffrey said, “God is with us.”

To the Sea of Tiberias, where disciples returned from a night of fishing with nothing to show. Nets once full are now empty. Or congregations once bustling now flicker with fragility. Yet on that same shore, the call comes to cast the net anew. “We need to be humble enough to discern the voice of the One who urges us to throw our nets in another direction.” He invited a different courage.

At the charcoal fire, Peter meets the risen Christ. Here is the mercy that follows denial, the confidence that follows collapse.

A member’s words at a Church Meeting stood as a parable: “If we call this minister the church will change, and it will not be as I’d prefer it to be. That is precisely why I will be voting for the call.” Someone yielding to God’s disruptive call.

The charge concluded with what is reported to be Francis Drake’s invocation to be disturbed: “When our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little; disturb us, Lord.” It was an appeal not for reassurance but for disruption.

God is with us

To the Moderator, and to the whole Assembly, the message is simple and searching. God is with us, in defiant faith that refuses to bow. God is with us, when the nets are empty, calling us in new directions. God is with us, offering forgiveness and commissioning us anew.

The whole Church is invited to a faith that resists, reorients, and follows, even, and especially, when the way is unknown.

As part of the service, the Assembly read the Statement concerning the Nature, Faith and Order of the URC.

Inducting Catriona, the outgoing Moderator, the Revd Tim Meadows, declared: “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and representing the General Assembly of the United Reformed Church I declare Catriona to be inducted as Moderator of General Assembly. May you continue to walk in the way of Christ, following in his footsteps.”

Catriona signed the Bible of the General Assembly and was welcomed by the Assembly with warm applause.

About Catriona

Catriona Wheeler was elected as Moderator at the 2023 meeting of the General Assembly and will chair its November 2025 and July 2026 meetings.

Catriona was educated at Teesdale School, Barnard Castle, and read law at Birmingham University. An Elder and Church Secretary of Trinity United Reformed Church, Lincoln, Catriona has been the Legal Advisor to the East Midlands Synod of the URC since 1997, works as solicitor practising in the areas of commercial property, corporate law and charity law, and is a Notary Public.

Her late grandfather and late mother were both URC Elders, as are both of her brothers.

Catriona conducts acts of worship and is authorised to preside at the Sacraments and is a Stepwise student. Catriona has held membership in churches across three synods, Northern, Yorkshire and East Midlands and serves as a director of East Midlands Synod Trust and Chair of the United Reformed Church Trust.

Her hobbies include gentle cycling, with the objective of seeing places, choral singing with the Lincoln Choral society; K-dramas (Korean dramas), BTS (a South Korean band), knitting and crochet.

In its nomination, East Midlands Synod said that it was delighted to make this nomination, “having benefitted from Catriona’s wisdom and clarity of thought in meetings and discussions on many occasions and in different situations. Her ability to crystalise the thinking of the room and her pastoral sensitivity to all aspects of an issue are among her great strengths.”

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