Our Needs Assessment Report
At Just Love, we seek to consistently improve what we do, so that we can see our vision and mission fulfilled. As a movement, we want to be critically engaged and data driven in order to maximise our impact and fruitfulness.
In the summer of 2022, with Eido Research, we conducted a ‘Needs Assessment’, asking 184 Christian students questions about both their individual responses to justice and that of their church. As the first stage in our process of building our impact strategy, we aimed to understand the specific needs of UK Christian students when it comes to pursuing justice in the way of Jesus.
Our key findings:
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Only 35% agreed that the Church is doing a good job of meeting the needs of marginalised and disadvantaged people. Only 14% agreed that the UK Church was doing a good job of tackling systemic injustices.
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Whilst 85% of Christian students in the UK said that they care about justice, only 40% of them are responding with costly lifestyle decisions - such as regular volunteering or intending to give away over 10% of their income. This demonstrates that belief is not translating into action.
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Only 33% of respondents reported that teaching from their church was “very” or “extremely” influential in their pursuit of justice, with 37% of respondents rating it as “somewhat” or “not” influential.
Impact Strategy
This clarity on the needs that we are seeking to address has shaped the Impact Strategy we have developed. Christian students care deeply about justice, but they are generally not being well equipped to faithfully pursue justice in the way of Jesus. That clarifies the role that we have to play in forming young disciples for a holistic, fruitful and sustainable pursuit of justice in the way of Jesus.