Reflections: Looking back and forward
Josh Skidmore May 2026
It’s been my privilege to lead the undergraduate student ministry at St Ebbe’s for the past four years. It’s the third time I’ve been part of the church family here, having been part of St Ebbe’s as an undergrad student (2012-15) and then later as an ordinand at Wycliffe Hall. I’ve been asked to reflect on these times and, as I do so, it is with much thankfulness and gratitude to God!
I imagine my reflections on my time as a student at St Ebbe’s will be shared by many others reading this. The impact on me of being part of the 11.45 congregation and Focus was massive. I came to Oxford as a Christian who loved Jesus but with relatively few convictions to stand on amid what felt like an onslaught of a Theology degree! How thankful I am for the contrast I found at church; a humble confidence in the word of God, the evident experience of studying it week by week and finding it true and life-giving. The convictions I was taught gave me a place to stand then and continue to shape me.
I’m thankful that it was never just about convictions per se at St Ebbe’s, but about Jesus and knowing him. I remember lots of walks back down Pembroke Street from church to college feeling like I couldn’t wait to spend some time praying and trying to put into practice what I’d just heard! Alongside the teaching, the Lord blessed my time as a student with enduring friendships and the gentle encouragement to consider full-time ministry as a next step after university.
By and large, I’ve just tried over the last 4 years to pay forward what I received back then. Lots of what happens for students at St Ebbe’s is the same; Focus, Ledbury, 121s all work relatively similarly. The world of Oxford feels different in some ways to back then. It’s been well-documented that there seems to be a greater openness amongst students to think about the big questions of life and what Christianity says to them. They often seem instinctively to value things that the gospel speaks very clearly to, like justice, authenticity, compassion and belonging. It’s similarly well-documented that students seem to find lots of aspects of life harder than they used to, and we’ve seen lots of pastoral issues arising from students finding life and work overwhelming, conflict and relationships harder to manage.
We’ve made some small structural changes to help us meet those opportunities and challenges, which focus particularly on integrating students into the whole of St Ebbe’s church life. But in the main, we’ve just continued to pray that the same Holy Spirit would enable people to see the same Jesus and receive life in him. Wonderfully, he’s continued to do it, and all of my highlights of serving in this ministry have been to do with people coming to new life in him, growing unrecognizably over 3 or 4 years, beginning to serve him, being sent out equipped to do so in the rest of life. The scale of the privilege of being involved in his work to those effects is impossible to express.
The next steps for Fern and me, God-willing, are a new baby – perhaps even by the time you read this – and leading the new St Ebbe’s plant to the north of Oxford. There’s lots to do to get ready for a September start, but it’s been great in recent weeks to have a core group of around 60 adults come together and some progress on meeting venues and all the attendant logistics. It’s a very exciting area to be moving into, with huge amounts of house-building planned, and many people already who don’t know Jesus, alongside a number of St Ebbe’s folk already living there. I’ll miss student ministry very much (there’s nothing quite like it!) but we’re looking forward to all the Lord has planned for the student ministry and for the plant. I’m so grateful for your partnership and prayer in this ministry and value it highly as we look to the future.