While the media coverage focused on coughing fits, pranksters and collapsing lettering at the Conservative Party Conference, Alan Yates, Moderator of the United Reformed Church’s General Assembly concentrated on offering politicians pastoral support.

Mr Yates, along with Church leaders from the Baptist, and Methodist churches attended the conference in Manchester from 2 to 3 October.

Together with colleagues from the Salvation Army and Quakers they met with MPs including Andrea Leadsom, Dominic Grieve, Stephen Crabb and other politicians who live out their vocation in public.

The Revd Mark Meatcher, United Reformed Church minister for the Chelmsford and Area Group of United Reformed Churches, reflects on Down in the River: Festival-on-Sea, a multicultural celebration of music, art, poetry, and film in Southend-on-Sea.

URC members and their families and friends enjoyed a fully packed programme of activities for all ages on 23 September, as part of the URC’s year of celebration of Feasts and Festivals.

The Revd Philip Brooks, Secretary for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations for the United Reformed Church, reflects on the World Council of Churches (WCC) conference entitled ‘The motor engineer of the ecumenical movement’ in Geneva on 18 September.

Being the son of a motor engineer, I smiled at this title as a description for the work of ecumenical officers. More than forty of us from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America (all tasked with working on ecumenical relations) gathered for four days in September in Bossey and Geneva, Switzerland, to hear more about the work of WCC as well as learning from each other.