OCTOBER 2026

By Dr. Amanda Udis-Kessler

“God has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Holy require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)

Dear UCCMA members,

I write this column right after guest teaching about systemic inequality in a graduate course for college administrators in training. I thought they would have questions about my book, Cultural Processes of Inequality: A Sociological Perspective, which they had just read. Instead, their questions were about self-care, grief, communicating with those who held different perspectives on social issues, acknowledging their own collusion in systems that oppressed them, and other such tender subjects. The whole experience was quite humbling, beautiful, and inspiring.

My time with the class also reminded me that when we sing prophetically about justice in our worship services, we aren’t just singing about one thing.

Sometimes we are mourning.

Sometimes we are raging at God.

Sometimes we are confessing our own fear or inaction and repenting of it.

Sometimes we are stating our commitment to abstract principles of justice.

Sometimes we are lifting up specific oppressed and devalued communities out there in the world.

Sometimes we are comforting members of oppressed and devalued communities within our walls.

Sometimes we are celebrating those members.

Sometimes we are calling in hope because we feel hopeless.

Sometimes we are aspiring to do better than we are currently doing when it comes to inclusion and the cherishing of all people.

Sometimes we are engaging with prophetic or other biblical understandings of justice.

Sometimes we are praying.

Sometimes we are preparing to go marching and sing in the street.

I’m sure I’ve left plenty of possibilities out of the above list.

All I know is that justice worship music is not one thing. It’s many things. It’s a panoply of concepts, a spectrum of emotions, and a range of invitations. It has many different sounds. It comes from many different traditions. It makes many different demands on us.

If you play a role in programming the music in your congregation, I invite you to think broadly about what justice music can mean and include in your local context. How do you currently interact musically with concepts of justice most often? Could your congregation benefit from any of the above approaches that you don’t currently use?

The more broadly and holistically we think about justice in the liturgical context of our church life, the better equipped we will be to go out and make the world more just and peaceful – as Jesus invites.

All peace, Amanda

amanda@amandaudiskessler.com