In her final week as Executive Director of JustMoney Movement, Sarah reflects:
As this scorching summer draws to a (slightly!) cooler close and we look ahead to autumn and the start of a new ‘term’ for many, I am reflecting on endings and transitions.
This is my last week as JustMoney Movement’s Executive Director, a role that it’s been my privilege to hold for over 5 years. Endings are always transitory, especially for those of us who seek a bit more of God’s kingdom on earth, pursuing (but never fully finding) a little more justice here on earth. Such earthly endings are always unsatisfactory and incomplete – and I have been reminded recently of the words of a poem attributed to (but never actually spoken by) martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero:
It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
At JustMoney Movement we know that any one of our actions is only a tiny part of a bigger movement – whether shifting our own or our churches’ money away from harmful activities like fossil fuel expansion, contacting our MPs about taxing wealth more fairly, or delving into all that our faith tradition has to say about the way we organise our economy.
We take these actions together, to add up to a bigger whole – one that can and has made a positive difference. We have helped to influence the actions of purpose-driven banks, contributed to new debates on greener finance, and to the shift in public narratives on tax justice. We’ve become a broader, more diverse movement, together seeking a fairer, greener future.
I am really proud of everything we have achieved together over the past few years. But we know it’s not enough. So we carry on working together, encouraging each other, moving forward. An interim Executive Director will be appointed in the coming weeks, so do keep them in your thoughts and prayers as they navigate what remains a challenging time for small charities like JustMoney Movement.
There are many more opportunities to get involved this autumn – do come and say hello to us at Greenbelt Festival if you’re there this weekend (find us near the House House), and look out for a whole host of new resources and events we have coming up ahead of and during Good Money Week 2026.
We also know that this work will never be complete this side of eternity. I am moving on to concentrate on my training for ordination as a minister in the Church of England, whilst staying connected in various ways with the movement for economic justice that I’ve been part of over the past 25 years. And as I close, I come back to some of the final words of that Oscar Romero poem:
We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realising that…
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest…
We are prophets of a future not our own.
(you can read the whole poem here)
A huge thank you to the JustMoney Movement team and to all of you too for everything you do for a fairer, greener use of money – and may we continue to seek (however incomplete) a little more of God’s kingdom here on earth.