Our Story

How did Worship + Justice Movement come to be? Here’s the full story from our founder Melissa Burke!

In October of 2017 I went to Washington D.C. for a national prayer gathering called Awaken the Dawn. For three days straight we stood on the national lawn, filling the grassy area from the Capitol Building to the Washington Monument with worship and intercession, crying out to God for revival to breakout in America.

On the day after Awaken the Dawn, I was resting in my hotel room when I heard: “worship and justice movement .com, worship and justice movement .org” They continued to play on repeat in my head while I reached for my phone to look up those web addresses. I figured they were a ministry that I was supposed to partner with or something like that.

As it turns out, those web domains did not exist! And were in fact for sale for about $25. So I purchased them, figuring that if this wasn’t God for some reason, I could probably afford the fee.

Over the next six months, from October 2017 to March 2018, I would have these encounters with the Lord where I would be doing normal life things— driving down the road, doing the dishes, cleaning my house— and I would get this flood of thoughts which I knew was the Lord, and I would quickly stop what I was doing and frantically reach for a pen or my phone to write down what He was saying.

In March, I heard the Lord say, “Melissa, it’s time to assemble your notes.” I knew exactly which ones He was talking about. Over the next hour, I compiled months of notes and when I finished, I began LAUGHING!

I had before a four page ministry plan for Worship + Justice Movement. It included a vision, mission, culture values, issues to go after and more!

In May of 2018, the Lord started speaking to me about hosting our first corporate gathering in August, and to be perfectly honest, I was resistant! I told God that I didn’t want to move forward with this without a team, and He lovingly but firmly told me that the team would assemble as I obeyed.

And oh my goodness, did He provide. In a six week period, we were gifted a 501(c)3 status, a women’s prayer network, and two pastor’s groups affirmed that this was God and got behind Worship + Justice Movement to see it launch. We were also blessed with a venue for our first gathering and with great anticipation we assembled on August 30th— with no idea what was about to unfold.

Over 300 people came that night to pray and ask God to break the stronghold of violence in the State of Alaska. That evening we shared statistics and called on heaven to heal our land. The power and presence of God was palpable.

God is stirring the hearts of His people to do more than simply attend church, as Bob Goff would say, “love does.” As our hands our raised in worship, our feet must move in action to serve.

And we’ve only just gotten started!

In 2019 our goal is to host a minimum of 4 gatherings and provide resources for the Worship Community in Alaska. When you partner financially with W+JM you are empowering the mission of the movement in very practical ways. If we had 200 partners commit to giving a $25 monthly gift, our entire budget for 2019 would be completely covered.  Consider partnering financially with us and help make the Movement a reality!