Justice Practices

As the Just Love Network, we gather around six Justice Practices that guide our pursuit of justice in the way of Jesus.

These practices are all rooted in the life, words, and example of Jesus, and express something of what it means to radically, fruitfully live out his call to social justice in our moment in history.

Find a short introduction to each of the Justice Practices, followed by more information on each, below.

The Justice Practices

  • 1. Serve Humbly

    We aim to spend our time and skills doing work for the sake of others.

  • 2. Live Lightly

    We aim to live lightly on the earth - using only what we need, removing ourselves from oppressive supply chains, and working to shape just and restorative economies.

  • 3. Give Deeply

    We aim to use the money that we have to enable huge transformation in the lives of others.

  • 4. Love Widely

    We aim to do relationships the Jesus way, crossing boundaries, creating space for others to thrive, and living lives of radical inclusion.

  • 5. Change Structures

    We aim to become political disciples who can transform unjust structures.

  • 6. Pray Boldly

    We aim to live from a life of prayer and invite our church communities to pursue justice in the way of Jesus.

  1. SERVE HUMBLY

  • "take up your cross and follow me" - Mark 8:34

    We do life with a posture of service. Whatever we spend our time and skill doing - whether paid work or caring for a relative, volunteering for charity or battling with illness - we aim to do it with others in mind, each as we are able.

    Every one of us has been given time, skills and the capacity to make a unique contribution to the world. We are designed by God to steward creation and bring life and fullness out of it.

    Often, work and volunteering are framed as being about ourselves. We are told to find employment that 'fulfills' us, or to look for volunteering that's 'rewarding.' This is all well and good, and it's not a problem - but it's also not the point. The point is others.

    As the Just Love Network, we aim to put our time, skills and vocation at God's disposal. We take the time to reflect on what we have been given, and we lay it back down, living for others in the best way we can find.

  • Living out this practice looks different for each of us, but there are some common themes:

    • Surrendered Vocation - Reflecting deeply on our vocation, and being open to make major shifts in our work and life to put others first.

    • Thoughtful Time-Giving - Being radical and selfless about the use of our time, but also discerning, working out how we can live for others in the best way we can.

2. LIVE LIGHTLY

  • "for you cannot serve both God and money…" - Matthew 6:24

    In our age of mass exploitation and environmental breakdown, we aim to use only what we need and extract ourselves from oppressive supply chains.

    Millions of people are forced into working within major global supply chains. At the same time, our world's ecological systems are at breaking point, driven to collapse by the relentless demands of human consumption.

    As the Just Love Network, we aim to resist these systems, removing ourselves wherever possible from environmentally and socially destructive supply chains.

  • Living out this practice looks different for each of us, but there are some common themes:

    • Conscious Travel - travelling consciously and creatively - e.g. car-sharing or cutting out flying

    • Mindful energy usage - using renewable energy and reducing energy use when possible

    • Adjusting diet - reducing our meat intake

3. GIVE DEEPLY

  • “Zaccheus said: Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and will pay back four times whatever I have cheated.” Jesus replied: “Today salvation has come to this house" - Luke 19:8-9

    Over the long haul of our lives, we aim to use what we have to enable huge transformation in the lives of others.

    However much we have, money presents a huge opportunity to bless others.

    As the Just Love Network, we want to, in the words of Isaiah, "spend ourselves on behalf of the hungry." (Isa 58:10) by committing to radical, sustainable, and mindful giving.

  • Perhaps more than any other practice, this one looks different for each of us, given our differing relationships with money. But there are some common themes:

    • Generous Giving - giving what we can, when we can, as consistently as we can. 

    • Diligent Giving - praying, researching, and thinking carefully about where we give, to ensure our giving makes the biggest possible difference to people and planet.

    • Ethical Finance - switching to an ethical bank account or pension.

    For some of us, especially those in paid employment, this might look like joining a giving group to pore over our finances with others or committing to an expenditure cap or income cap to sustainably steward our finances.

    For others,  it may mean choosing a career that will enable us to give more over the course of our career.

    For others, it will look different still, at times just trusting God with our finances or sharing what we can with others, when we can. 

    For all of us this calling is likely to shift and change over the course of our lives, and we'll constantly need people around us, walking the road together and backing each other up.

4. LOVE WIDELY

  • "when you have a party, do not invite your friends or relatives; invite excluded people who could never pay you back" - Luke 14:12-14

    We aim to do relationships the Jesus way, crossing boundaries, creating space for others to thrive, and living lives of radical inclusion.

    Over and against digital distraction, culture wars, and social polarisation, we seek to shape spaces of justice and belonging. God said that he "sets the lonely in families" (Ps 68:6) - but he calls us to be part of how he does so.

    We aim to create, shape, and be part of communities that are inclusive, that do justice together, and where all are able to belong. Whether we are single, married, divorced, grieving, paying a mortgage, living in a flat-share, raising children, or whatever else, we aim to do home, family, and community in a radically other-centred way.

  • Living out this practice looks different for each of us, but there are some common themes:

    • Crossing Boundaries - Literally relocating our lives to physically cross the boundaries erected by society, be they cultural, economic, political, or linguistic.

    • Inclusive Family - Committing to foster or adopt children who otherwise may not have a safe environment in which to grow up, or giving our time to support networks for people hard-pressed by life.

    • Committing to people and place - Being intentional about our communities.

5. CHANGE STRUCTURES

  • “The kingdom of God is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a vast amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.” - Matthew 13:33

    Injustice isn't an accident. It's a result of structures and systems, ideas and institutions. We aim to strike at the root causes of injustice and find better ways of doing things.

    The history of breakthroughs in social, political, and environmental justice is the story of well-organised, strategically-mobilised social movements that rewrote the script, often from the ground up.

    Together, we aim to give significant time and resources to the work of politics, advocacy, and system change.

  • Living out this practice looks different for each of us, but there are some common themes:

    • Political Engagement - Informed and active membership of political parties, or choosing a career in local government or impactful campaigning organisations.

    • Thoughtful Voting - Praying, reflecting, and researching deeply whenever engaging in the democratic process, listening attentively to opposing viewpoints, and making space for others to do the same. 

    • Targeted Advocacy - Joining up with others in creative and strategic ways to influence the practices and policies of governments, businesses, schools, churches, healthcare organisations, and other institutions.

6. PRAY BOLDLY

  • "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven…" - Matthew 6:9-10

    Our work for justice does not happen in a vacuum but against a spiritual backdrop. We aim to live from, in, and by prayer.

    Jesus is our ultimate picture of what it means to "seek justice." His life was marked by a deep love of prayer, and as his followers we seek to live likewise.

    The style, nature, and content of our prayers will vary hugely depending on our traditions and personalities.

    Yet, as the Just Love Network, we pray for God to bring his kingdom here and now, "on earth as in heaven," just as Jesus taught us. More than that, we also want to influence our local churches, helping them to embrace these six Justice Practices as a way of worshipping Jesus.

  • Living out this practice looks different for each of us, but there are some common themes:

    • Pray Openly - Trusting that the Spirit will shape our hearts and minds as we give ourselves to him in prayer, refreshing our vision and transforming our character. 

    • Pray Boldly - Contending in prayer for situations of evil, injustice, and oppression, believing that things can change because God is at work in the world. 

    • Pray In Community - Committing to spaces of prayer that will keep us sustained and sharpened for the long haul, and not just for a moment.

  • These 6 practices express something of what it means to radically and fruitfully live out Jesus’ call to social justice in our moment in history. Every one of them is rooted directly in the life, words and example of Jesus. Every one of them is also flexible, and will look very different for each one of us according to our experiences, place and context.

    These are at first aspirations: dreams of who we want to be and how we want to live, for the benefit of others. Over time, these aspirations become commitments, resolutions to live and act in a certain way, even when it costs. Eventually, these commitments become practices, which in turn become habits: a real-time experience of God's grace worked out in our lives.

    That's what these are. They are not:

    • A to-do list.

    • A set of rules, laws or entry criteria.

    • A comprehensive or exhaustive list of what it means to "seek justice" - they only scratch the surface.

    Most importantly of all, we're not expecting any one of us to be going 100% on all 6 of these at once. We're only human. They also require a great degree of contextualisation - what it means to "live lightly" or "engage structures" will look different for different people, not least through our different experiences of privilege and oppression, power and exclusion.

    These six practices are our starting point, a broad structure and framework that holds us together and shows us the direction of travel. Put simply, in 10, 20, 50 years time we all want to look a little more like Christ in each one of these areas.

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About the Just Love Network

We're a lifelong space of support and action in the work of social justice, gathering around six Justice Practices. And we’d love for you to join us!

We run a mixture of events, communities and action projects across the UK and online.

Let’s pursue justice in the way of Jesus, together.

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