Alan Yates, Moderator of the United Reformed Church General Assembly, and a number of other URC leaders (see caption for full details), will be taking part in an ecumenical mission to Cumbria from 8 to 11 March.

They will join the Most Revd John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, and the Revd Loraine Mellor, President of Methodist Conference, on the Moving Mountains mission which is organised by Churches in Cumbria. 

The mission comes under the ecumenical God for All banner, which aims to build on the prayers, planning and work completed across churches in Cumbria during the past five years, with the intention that everyone in Cumbria should know more about God and his purpose for their lives.

Shocking figures released by End Hunger UK on 30 January, provide a glimpse of the extent of hidden hunger in the UK.

The campaign – a coalition of food poverty organisations which include the United Reformed Church (URC) – is urging the government to start measuring food insecurity across the UK.

The figures show 16% of adults either skipping or seeing someone in their household skipping meals, 14% worrying about not having enough food to eat, and 8% going a whole day without eating because of lack of money in the last 12 months.

Members of Britain’s largest food bank network have moved into the United Reformed Church’s London office.

The Trussell Trust’s external affairs team moved into Church House in early January, and will continue to carry out its vital work.

The charity, which is based on Christian principles, gave 1,182,954 three-day emergency food supplies to people in crisis,  across the UK, from 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2017 compared to 1,109,309 the previous year. Of this number, 436,938 went to children.