An Anchorage-based Christian group called Worship + Justice Movement is holding a prayer gathering on the Delaney Park Strip on Friday, June 19 to pray for racial healing.

“In light of national events, I felt it was urgent and necessary to gather the Body of Christ to pray over what’s happening in our nation in terms of racism,” says the group’s founder, Melissa Burke, “as well as to acknowledge and lament over our own history of racism and how it’s still manifested today.”

The group sent out a call on the event’s Facebook page to anyone who “follows Jesus,” to come to the prayer event.

“While I think there may be a need for systematic changes, I am also convinced that the real pathway forward is through transformed hearts,” Burke says, “The same Jesus who transformed water into wine is the same Jesus who transforms hearts and minds and belief systems to align with His.”

The event is called Civil Righteousness: Unified Prayer For Racial Healing in Alaska.

“This is a peaceful prayer gathering,” Burke says, “It is prayer-oriented.”

Members from several Anchorage churches donated graphic design services, sound equipment, and volunteered to provide security. One church paid for the costs for the permits and the liability insurance rider required by the municipality.

“This is coming together rapidly which is why it is so exciting to see how many churches are involved.” Burke says.

Chris Hawk is the worship leader at Eagle River Missionary Baptist Church.  He will sing and lead worship at Friday’s prayer gathering.

“We were sitting and talking and Melissa felt pressed to do something about it,” Hawk said, “I said, ‘Whatever you do, I’ll support.’  But, she has definitely been the gas in the car on this.”

The model of Worship + Justice, Burke says, is to hold an event to pray about issues affecting Alaskans and challenge the attendees to get involved in practical ways with local organizations and ministries serving those needs.

The group has held similar prayer meetings for healing of families, breaking the cycles of addiction, sexual assault, violence and murder. They held a prayer service for an economic turnaround in the state — before COVID-19 put the state’s economy on center stage.

“We mobilize people to get engaged,” Burke says, “Pretty much any event we do, we partner with organizations that are experts in that field.”

Those experts include AWAIC, Teen Challenge, Acts 247 Recovery Church, Celebrate Recovery and Beacon Hill.

For Friday’s event, Burke’s go-to expert is a non-profit Christian ministry organization called Civil Righteousness. Based in St. Louis, the group was formed when some 60 Christian ministries joined together to pray and worship during the Ferguson riots of 2014. Their prayer movement became known as the Ferguson Response. The mission of Civil Righteousness is “racial reconciliation and restorative justice through spiritual, cultural and economic renewal.”  Burke is their regional representative. She made a few calls to the group to learn its model and use its branding.

But, this prayer gathering is the first event Burke has organized in 3 days. She says she decided to host the event last Tuesday, and by Wednesday, she had submitted all of the required paperwork for permits with the municipality. On Friday, she obtained all of the necessary permits to hold the prayer gathering. Her inspiration, she says, was an urgent and divine call to pray for racial healing in Alaska.

“I feel like what I’m witnessing in our nation is a giant trauma response,” Burke said, “We are hurting on so many levels and people respond to pain in a lot of different ways.”

“I’m very angry,” said Jenn Eason, “But, I think what we do with our anger matters.  We’re coming together to stand in our pain before God.”

Eason is no stranger to trauma. She has taught discipleship and positive identity to street kids, war victims and sex trafficking victims in the war-torn eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo and to gang members in Haiti and Washington D.C.

“The only way I’ve seen healing is through prayer,” she said.

Burke says she wants to keep the event purely focused on seeking God’s help for racial healing. She says there is a false narrative that to be anti-racism, one has to be anti-police.

“We are not anti-police,” she says, “We are for humans treating each other with dignity.”

“I am for humanity,” says Eason, “whether it’s a police officer or a member of the ACLU. I am for restoring dignity to all humanity.”

Hawk says the police are a piece of the puzzle, but he says, “It’s not as black and white as being a police issue.  It’s a heart issue.”

“To me, black lives matter is a statement first,” Hawk says, “Most people think of it as a movement or an organization first, but for me, it’s a statement before anything else. We are made in God’s image, therefore we matter.”

He says the focus of Friday’s prayer event is for the church to assemble together to pray as one for healing from an old enemy of the heart.

“2 Chronicles 7:14 says, ‘If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land,'” Hawk says, “It’s important for the church to unify as a body.  There’s a reason why God addresses us as a group in that scripture so many times…my people, themselves, their. He was making it clear that we must do this thing together and that there’s power in doing so.”

Worship + Justice Movement is asking all of the participants to abide by social distance recommendations and to wear masks with a one word prayer written on a piece of tape that will be provided at the event. Burke says the event will begin with worship at 6:00 p.m. and then transition into silent prayer.

While she put together an event to pray for racial healing on short notice, as the nation is suffering from the trauma of watching the murder of George Floyd, Burke says she has big expectations.

“I would never organize an event on an issue this heavy on such short notice,” she said, “but I know that God has spoken and that He is going to do something magnificent.”