If a welcome was what you were looking for, it was easy to find at the 2025 URC Youth Assembly

‘All are welcome’ was the theme for the 2025 URC Youth Assembly – held this year in a new venue, King’s Park in Northampton. It certainly felt like a place of welcome as close on a hundred young people and a host of associated staff and ‘over-26’ supporters mingled around pool and table tennis tables, relaxed on sofas, or made a hot drink, all in the centre’s central hub.

From here, all the other spaces spread out, for worship, workshops, business sessions and food. It was, from the word go, a vibrant and varied expression of Church.

‘I’m here to see my friends’, says Korede simply, ‘because I’ve not seen them in over a year.’ There are few, if any, young people in her area of Wales, so it is at Youth Assembly that her deep church friendships are being grown. It’s the same for Sammy – ‘When you’re in your church and you’re the only one your age in a community, you can feel, not isolated, but you don’t get the bigger picture. The United Reformed Church is more than my little church in Dursley.’

‘We don’t really talk about faith at my house,’ one young person reflected. ‘We’re all Christians apart from my dad but we don’t really sit around the dining table and talk about all that’s going on.’ Youth Assembly provides them with an opportunity for more conversation, ‘and a bigger family than I already have’.

The experience of being the only young one, or one of only a tiny number, in a church or area, crops up a lot during the weekend. It’s one reason why word of mouth is so important. ‘I came because Leo had been,’ says Bence. And when asked why he has returned after two years, Isaac says, ‘To bring some other people from my church.’

So, of course the social ‘getting to know you’ aspect is important. In fact, ‘Why don’t we do more of this at General Assembly?’ asks one old hand who has experience of both events. ‘Games, a film, prayer stations, toasting marshmallows over a fire pit…’ It’s a thought.

At the same time, Isaac adds, ‘I’m also here because I think it’s a good opportunity to actually make a difference in the URC and have your voice heard.’ Next to him, Elliot, a first-timer encouraged by Isaac to attend, agrees enthusiastically.

They are speaking after a detailed and at times intense debate about whether or not to encourage local church engagement with the Welcome Directory, an initiative that supports prison leavers to rejoin faith communities. The motion fitted well with the ‘All are welcome’ theme, but a good deal of concern was raised about how young people would be kept safe, and there was a clear need to understand URC risk assessment and safeguarding procedures.

‘I think it’s good they give us a voice to be able to have difficult conversations,’ Elliot says. The event also ‘allows us as children to have an impact on what the Church does and on the General Assembly – which I think is something you don’t get in any other Church really.’

That impact was evident when the Youth Moderator, Heather Moore, reported on the progress of resolutions passed by the 2024 Youth Assembly – one relating to Honest Church, and another encouraging churches to develop further connections and collaborations with peace-focused organisations in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (IOPT). Of nine resolutions debated at General Assembly on IOPT matters, three concerns had been raised by Youth Assembly.

This year, incoming Youth Moderator Maya Withall says she wants the environment to be uppermost in the minds of the URC’s young people. She is encouraging young people to inspire their local churches to consider their role in climate change and the environmental impact of their activities.

Like the wider Church, Youth Assembly has also been looking at its structures, and Maya introduced a motion that will allow Assembly Executive members to focus on a specific aspect of its work, for example planning the Assembly itself. The goal is to make workloads more manageable and to encourage greater engagement with the Executive’s work.

Further wide-ranging discussion took place in workshops, among them one on social media and faith (see right), and a notably well-attended workshop on call and vocation. For Manuela, one high point of her time at Youth Assembly was a workshop on ‘Refugees, Immigration and Definitions’. ‘I’ve heard a lot of stories in the news about it and to be able to find out the truth of what is happening was interesting to know.’ Manuela says the workshop opened her eyes to the prejudice shown to people in difficult situations.

‘Raising awareness on issues and giving the young people opportunities to be educated and discuss what they are really passionate about can really make a difference,’ says Meg Tillbrook, one of the URC’s team of Children and Youth Development Officers (CYDOs). Meg also believes that such opportunities make a difference beyond the young people themselves.

‘I think it’s really important for the growth and development in URC churches to hear and see what the next generation are concerned about, are worried about, are passionate about.’ One result, she believes, is that churches get more involved in the local communities and make a difference there also.
And when Youth Assembly really dug down into the implications of their theme, ‘All are welcome’, it became evident that this too was a springboard for making radical difference, both in personal outlook and in social engagement.

Keynote speaker Dr Lisa Adjei, Head of Racial Justice Priority for the Church of England’s Diocese of London, urged Assembly members to rethink the theme in terms of ‘Belonging for all’. Truly belonging, she said, means we are all accepted as we are, that ‘you can be part of the decision-making and bring an idea and something of yourself to the table’.

The Moderator of General Assembly, the Revd Tim Meadows, also unpacked the challenge posed by the theme. Instead of asking the question ‘Who is my neighbour?’ he said, we should ask, ‘Are we going to be the neighbour? Are we going to be that welcome?’

Youth Assembly 2025 was a place to begin that transformation. Alvin, from Northern Synod, has lived in the UK for less than two years and says he was ‘sceptical’ about coming to Youth Assembly. Yet ‘it has been a wonderful experience to meet people and understand what their experience has been in their own lives’. He left Youth Assembly this year as a new member of the Youth Executive.

As Alvin begins his Youth Executive journey, Heather Moore ends her time as 2024-25 Moderator. In a moving closing presentation, she spoke about the value of the radical welcome she has received at Youth Assembly. It is the place, she says, ‘where I truly understood that the Christian faith could apply to someone like me. Where I discovered just how much God loved me just as I am, and learned that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made in God’s image, including the parts that I really didn’t like about myself.’ At Youth Assembly, all are welcome indeed.

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This article was published in the Issue 3 – 2025 edition of Reform. The 2024-25 Youth Moderator was Heather Moore, not Laura Everard as stated in the printed edition.

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