|PIC1|The Rev John Marsh is to become the next Moderator of the General Assembly of the United Reformed Church and the only one serving in the role until 2010.

Reflecting a number of structural changes made by the URC recently, Marsh will serve alone as Moderator until 2010, when two moderators will be appointed to serve together for a two-year term. He takes up his new office in Edinburgh on July 11.

From this year, members of the United Reformed Church will meet in Assembly in alternate years.

Marsh, who has led several churches at the local level, is still getting used to the idea of being in the public eye.

"After four decades of ministry with local churches, and no eye-catching headlines, I now find myself thrust into the spotlight," he said.

"I hear all sorts of voices claiming to speak for Christians or Muslims. Very often they don't speak for me. Shocking statements are more likely to attract attention than good honest sense.

"But at least that means that good honest sense can get on with its work without being mugged.

"Better to be unremarkably committed to peacemaking and community building than to be heard everywhere for being weird and cruel."

Marsh was ordained in 1967 at what was previously Knowle Park Congregational Church in Keighley, West Yorkshire, before Congregationalists and Presbyterians came together to form the United Reformed Church in 1972.

As a United Reformed Church minister, John Marsh went on to serve churches at Washington new town, Sunderland, Worcester, Stourport-on-Severn, Leek and Norwich.

He and his wife Jackie moved to Redditch in Worcestershire in 2005. They have two sons who both live in London, and one grandchild born in 2006.

Marsh admits that some of his retirement plans have had to be put on hold while he devotes himself to the task of being Moderator, but it is a role he is looking forward to taking up.

"I anticipate with delight the prospect of visiting local churches across Scotland, Wales and England. But not all of them, of course!"