09 June 2022
#MyJusticeJourney stories
From Friday May 27 to Friday 3 June, almost 250 people shared stories of their own justice journeys as part of a social media campaign organising by the Walking With Micah justice project and Methodist Heritage.
The aim was to share stories and artefacts of personal justice journeys, both past and present, to bring together Methodist organisations, heritage sites, churches and individuals to show our responses over time to the Christian call to be a justice-seeking people. Rachel Lampard, who heads up the Walking with Micah justice project, worked with Methodist Heritage and a small team of volunteers to contact Methodists in all walks of life to provide an insight into how justice forms a crucial role within the Methodist Church.
Over the period of 7 days, there were 1,170 mentions on Twitter with more than 300 of those mentions using #WalkingWithMicah as well. This serves an important reminder into the impact justice conversations are having across the Methodist Church.
There is still time to get involved with these and we'd encourage Methodist churches who haven't yet held their own justice conversations to download the resources and submit their response.
The total reach of the campaign was more than 2.5 million, with a total impressions count of just under 6 million. The content being shared during the campaign was all about authentic voices telling real stories, which is why the the reach and impressions were so high. This kind of content performs extremely well on social platforms. We even saw accounts like @CitizensUK retweeting some of the content being posted, showing that the reach of campaign went far beyond the online church community.
You can view some of the top performing posts in regards to their reach below, and also see the conversations that they inspired as others got involved and shared their stories.
So this is one story of #MyJusticeJourney. This is my Great-Grandma, Jane Ann Mellor. She left school at 13 and went into service as a housemaid. When she arrived at work, the lady of the house told her she would call her Mary: “I call all my housemaids Mary”. 1/4 pic.twitter.com/uVPT5YvIoQ
— Rachel Lampard (@racheljl) May 27, 2022
#MyJusticeJourney became real when through the Methodist Association of Youth Clubs I met young people from South Africa and learned the horror of apartheid. I joined in marches calling for an end to that system. My artefact is a glass piece I made of the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Tree. pic.twitter.com/luObKOirF8
— Michaela Youngson (@Stphotina) May 29, 2022
Today I’m sharing #myjusticejourney with @wswboro which is about patrolling the streets, offering pastoral care & support to vulnerable folk. Everyone has the right to feel safe when they go out night. @MethodistHerit @MethodistGB pic.twitter.com/i3XeS9MuZC
— Fiona Fidgin (@Fidge) May 28, 2022
Our CEO @SamMonaghanMHA has written a blog for #MyJusticeJourney as part of a campaign to tackle injustice.
— Methodist Homes (MHA) (@yourMHA) May 30, 2022
The blog reflects the determination to improve care and support for older people exemplified by our founding figure. https://t.co/En8jSFVPH8 @MethodistHerit @MethodistGB pic.twitter.com/FJfgq9eZjg
This isn't just a campaign for a set period of time however. We'd love to hear more about your #MyJusticeJourney so that we can continue to celebrate the incredible stories people have to share. Tweet your story using #MyJusticeJourney and email it to us so that we can include it as part of our bank of stories on our website.
We want to celebrate the justice-seeking nature of those within the Methodist Church and this campaign provided a wonderful opportunity to share stories and make a statement about this aspect of Methodism.