As a lawyer, Catriona Wheeler has worked for charities and advised the Church. Now she brings that expertise and outlook to her new role as Moderator of the United Reformed Church General Assembly

Were you brought up in the Christian faith?
Yes. My mother was originally Church of Scotland and when she and my father married, in Gloucestershire, they agreed my father wasn’t going to take us to the Church of England, so we were baptised into the Presbyterian Church. We moved up to County Durham when I was a baby and went to a Presbyterian church 15 miles away. That became URC when I was seven – to date myself!

So you grew up in the United Reformed Church?
That’s right. When I was a child and then a teenager, we went alternate weeks, and we would talk about the service on the way home from church, having a good long drive back. It was a place I went to and we talked about it, but I probably didn’t feel a part of the URC itself until I became a student and then started work and was looking out for a URC for myself. It was my natural home to go to.

Where was that?
As a student in Birmingham, I went to Weoley Hill, and then, in Chester for the College of Law for a year, I went to St Andrews. They were very friendly. When I started work, I was at Headingley, St Columba’s. I was there for a good many years and that’s where I became an Elder…

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This is an extract from an article published in the Issue 4 – 2025 edition of Reform

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