Who We Are

6 Core Practices

The Just Love Network is a global network of support and action for all connected with Just Love. We gather around a set of 6 core practices that express who we are and what we care about.

Read on to find out more, or take the survey to help shape how the Network engages in these practices going forward.

Aspiration, Practice, Experience

  • 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.

    There is much that is missing here, and much that falls short about these 6 practices. However, these 6 principles 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.

    So what are they?

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. It looks different for each of us, but at root there are some common themes:

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

    • Thoughtful Time-Giving - Giving time both generously and thoughtfully; we want to be radical and selfless about the use of our time.

    In all we do, we seek to make it about others.

2. LIVE LIGHTLY

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

    In our age of mass environmental breakdown and widespread exploitation, we aim to live lightly on the earth, using only what we need, extracting ourselves from oppressive supply chains, and working to shape just and restorative economies.

    Millions of people work as slaves in major global supply chains. Hundreds of millions more have little choice but to work in unsafe, unsanitary conditions for extremely low pay, with little chance of representation or redress.

    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. We do this through choices like:

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

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

    • Mindful Consumption - Where we can, spending time researching and purchasing ethical alternatives to major consumer products.

    But we don't stop there. The personal is political. Even as we choose another way of doing life, we commit to work thoughtfully and effectively for the transformation of unjust systems and structures.

    Wherever possible, we seek to support each other in making these lifestyle decisions, acknowledging the cost is very high for some.

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

    Each of us has a different relationship with money. Some of us have easy access to financial resources, while others of us are struggling to get by. Over the long haul of our lives, we aim to live lightly and give deeply, using what we have to enable huge transformation in the lives of others.

    However much we have, money presents a huge opportunity to bring blessing and transformation to others. For many of us, radical, sustainable and mindful giving is the single biggest, simplest way we can, in the words of Isaiah, "spend ourselves on behalf of the hungry." (Isa 58:10).

    Perhaps more than any other practice, this one looks different for each of us. Yet together, we aim for a life of:

    • 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, and not just following our instincts. We want our giving to make the biggest difference to people and planet as it possibly can.

    • Simple Living - as we are able, cutting the luxury and unnecessary costs from our lives to make more room to give.

    For some of us, especially those in paid employment, this might look like joining a giving group to pore over our finances with others, committing to an expenditure cap or income cap to sustainably steward our finances, or taking time out to pray and research the most effective ways to give.

    For others, it may mean thinking carefully - and radically - about inherited money and possessions, working out how best to use these for God's kingdom.

    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.

    As with "Live Lightly," this practice only makes sense if we pair it with another: "Engage Structures." The best of our giving is a drop in the ocean if we do not shift the fundamental structures that create injustice and destroy our planet.

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

    In an era marked by isolation, fragmentation and the breakdown of community, we aim to do relationships the Jesus way, crossing boundaries, creating space for others to thrive, and living lives of radical inclusion.

    Over 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 to do that he needs people who are up for it.

    We aim to create, shape and be part of communities that are truly 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.

    This might look like:

    • 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 and circumstance.

    • Crossing Boundaries - Relocating our lives to care for isolated elderly people, to cross a cultural boundary, or to better serve a community at the margins of society.

    • Radical Hospitality - "Welcoming the stranger" into our homes, be they a refugee fleeing conflict, a young person in need of a safe space, or a person finding their feet after time behind bars.

    For some of us, this looks like opening our homes and our lives to people who are usually excluded or avoided, whether through illness, disability, gender identity, or whatever else. Or making space to accommodate people in urgent need of a place to stay, whether refugees fleeing conflict or people recovering from addiction or trauma.

    For others, it might look like choosing counter-cultural forms of relational life, such as intentional community, voluntary singleness or the sharing of possessions, committing ourselves to spaces of justice, peace and belonging.

    For others still, it will look like relocating our lives to physically cross the social and cultural boundaries erected by society, be they cultural, economic, political or linguistic - literally mapping out our lives based on the Kingdom of God.

    In these and a thousand other ways, we seek to be and become the family of God, a community of reconciliation, love and friendship for all, extending far beyond birthplace, borders or biology.

5. ENGAGE 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 fundamentally and sustainably transform structures, striking at the root causes of injustice and finding better ways of doing things.

    Change is not handed down on a silver platter - it has to be won. The history of major 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.

    As the Just Love Network, we aim to give significant time and resources to the work of politics, advocacy and system change. This might look like:

    • Political Engagement - Informed, active membership of political parties, 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.

    Wherever possible we aim to work with those who are already pressing for change, working in coalition. We aim to be open to new and unexpected ideas, to new ways of seeing the world and to innovation. We aim to listen attentively to those, both among us and beyond us, who experience injustice and oppression within the current status quo, allowing their voices and experiences to shape the vision of the world we work for.

6. PRAY BOLDLY

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

    "History belongs to those who pray" - our work for justice does not happen in a vacuum, but against a spiritual backdrop. However we understand prayer, we aim to live from it, in it and by it.

    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. We aim to:

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

    The style, nature and content of these prayers will vary hugely. As individuals, our personal language of communicating with God is as unique as everything else about us. Yet as a Just Love Network we pray, calling on God to bring his kingdom here and now, "on earth as in heaven," just as Jesus taught us.

7. STAY TRUE

  • "abide in me" - John 15:4

    Jesus has given us a new way of doing life, and a new way of doing justice. A way that values faith over force, brokenness over brilliance, and mercy over judgment. Amid the changing tides of human history, and through life's changing seasons, we aim to stay true to Jesus and who he calls us to be.

    The night before he died, Jesus identified the axis on which the future success of his followers would rise or fall: "abide in me, and I in you, and you will bear much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing" (Jn 15:5).

    As the Just Love Network, we aim to stay rooted in Jesus Christ, convinced that nothing we do will ever have any lasting value unless it is from him, of him and by him. No matter where we are, what we do or how we do it, we aim to do it in the style of Jesus, becoming ever more the "little Christs" that scripture calls us to be, and staying true to the infinitely beautiful picture of life with God that he has given us. In particular, we aim to conform our lives to the image of:

    • His Words - Deepening every day our attention to the words of Jesus as recorded in the gospels, resolving to centre our lives and thoughts on his vision of reality.

    • His Life - Focusing ourselves completely on the practical, embodied example of Jesus' everyday life, spending time with him and seeking to become just like him.

    • His Death and Resurrection - Going where we do not want to go for the sake of others, trusting that love can bring light out of the darkness.

    As we stumble, fail and fall short of our own expectations and those of scripture, we stay true to the words that he has spoken over us: "I have made you clean."

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FAQs

  • The Just Love Network is primarily made up of people who were involved in Just Love at university. However, the door is open to anyone connected to Just Love who shares our vision and wants to join in with the key justice focuses we have. Sign up here, or get in touch if you want to learn more.

    The Network also has "mentor members," a set of older members of the Just Love Network who are here to provide long-term support and advice. If you're interested in being a mentor member, or would like to recommend someone, get in touch.

  • The Just Love Network is first and foremost just that - a network of relationships and connections.

    However, we know that it helps to have some structure too. We've created four key ways to get involved and connect with others:

    • Spheres - issue-based and workplace groups.

    • Hubs - regional connection around social justice.

    • Sixes - deeper learning communities.

    • Project Teams - running campaigns and projects.