Just Love began in Oxford in 2013.

The original group of students in Oxford began meeting to pray, strategise and envision a future where every Christian student is pursuing justice in the way of Jesus. They began the first Just Love group and sent out homeless outreach groups to serve their neighbours.

After a few chance connections, a team of students formed in Durham, launching the second Just Love student group in April 2014. Later that year, co-founder Tom Christmas began working for Just Love full-time, building partnerships and forming a trustee and advisory board to launch Just Love as a movement.

2015 saw massive growth for Just Love’s student groups, with groups being launched in Bath, Cambridge, Glasgow, Exeter and St Andrews. Alongside this, the staff team expanded and we gained more wisdom from our advisory board.

In 2016, we launched the Just Love Network as part of our vision to grow a network of thousands pursuing justice in the way of Jesus for their whole lives.

In our student groups, we worked with Restored to run the Unashamed campaign in October 2016. The online campaign and various events raised awareness of the violence women experience while at university.

Our student work expanded to 13 universities across the UK and saw Just Love feature at the HTB Leadership Conference. Alongside this, the Just Love staff team grew to a team of 6! 

The Just Love Network continued to grow, becoming a lifelong space of support and action in the work of justice, and equipping graduates to continue pursuing justice in the way of Jesus far beyond their time at university. 

We held our second national event in London and saw our first career sphere gatherings taking place as part of the Network.

In 2018, we increased to 19 student groups (including two more in Scotland and our first group in Wales) and the Just Love staff team grew to 8 members of staff. 

Throughout the year, we saw students and graduates pursuing justice in the way of Jesus more seriously than ever before. Students in Cambridge helped launch a successful refugee scholarship campaign and Just Love Durham established a winter night shelter improving the provision for those rough sleeping in their city. We had just under 100 graduates attend our third Just Love Network National Gathering.

2019 was fantastic year for Just Love. We hosted three Easter Training events for our students (including one in Scotland for the first time), as well as a fantastic Autumn Training event in London, where over 90 students gathered to pray, receive teaching and be equipped to pursue justice in the way of Jesus in their cities!

2020 was defined by the COVID-19 pandemic. In March, the country went into a national lockdown and all of Just Love’s activities had to go online! We planned two online Easter Training events and set about running Just Love through a global pandemic. Our student groups adapted well, raising a huge £45,000 across the calendar year! 

In summer 2020, we said a sad goodbye to Tom Christmas, the founder of Just Love, who moved on to pursue a career in business and politics. Josh Smedley stepped into the role of CEO in September and we welcomed three new staff members to the team.

As the country began to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, we began regain a sense of normality within Just Love. Over the summer, the staff team were able to meet in person for the first time since early 2020 and we ran our first in-person training event in September, welcoming 120 students to Chiswick for 3 days of training. 

In autumn, our team grew again to 13 people in total and we our National Gathering focusing on the theme of financial generosity. For the first time, the National Gathering happened in three locations - Glasgow, Sheffield and London - simultaneously, enabling more members of our Network to access the event.

After a lot of rebuilding in 2021, many of our student groups were finding momentum again by 2022. Our groups in Bristol and Oxford co-hosted conferences on domestic violence with Restored. A new group got started in Falmouth and our groups mobilised over 3000 hours serving their local communities. 

There was a lot of change on our staff team over the summer, with four staff moving on and six new staff joining the team. We ran our autumn national training in Sheffield for the first time and hosted our annual National Gathering - ‘Blessed are the Peacemakers’ - in Leeds, themed around the topic of reconciliation and peace-making.

In 2023, Just Love celebrated our 10th Birthday with our biggest ever National Gathering, ‘Another World is Possible’. Over 300 members of our Network, as well as partners and friends, joined us in London to celebrate everything God has done through Just Love and to look ahead for where Just Love is going in the next 10!

2023 also saw the launch of Just Love Projects - space for people to come together to launch creative new justice projects. You can find out more about the first two projects - ‘Bank Well’ and ‘Teach Clean Air’ - here.

In 2024, we saw our student groups running fantastic and effective fundraisers. Just Love Durham raised £5000 for Tearfund through their ‘Race Across County Durham’ challenge, and 5 groups - Newcastle, Durham, Cardiff, Glasgow, and Nottingham - ran ‘Stand for Freedom’ events, raise an incredible £8983 for International Justice Mission.

The Just Love Network hosted its first ever retreat in early 2024, and in October we had a sold out National Gathering in Birmingham, on the theme of ‘Changing Structures’. This National Gathering was the first in our series of gatherings looking at our Justice Practices.

Already in 2025, we have seen members of the Just Love Network gathering in 7 cities across the UK for our Worship + Justice Nights - spending time worshipping together and asking God to move in areas of injustice in the world. We have also seen a new group student committees being equipped to run Just Love groups in their cities at our Easter Training events.

We are looking forward to all that God does in and through Just Love this year and would love to invite you to get involved in this growing movement!

Our 2025 National Gathering tickets will is on 7th to 9th of November and tickets are now live! Grab yours here.