Tag Archives: funeral

Church for the unchurched

12 Monday Mar 2018

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Recently I led a funeral service where many of the attendees were not regular worshipers.  In fact, it might be safe to say they never attended, nor had a belief system about God, nor could possibly think about encounters with God.  I could certainly be wrong about that.  Regardless though, this raised a few questions in my mind.

Before the funeral began, a thought went through my head – that I was going to have to explain everything to the people.  There would need to be an explanation about communion – not just what we did, but why we did it.  There would need to be an explanation about the hymns, where to find them, and more.  There would need to be an explanation about the passing of the peace.  The entire service would be foreign for many people.  And here was an opportunity to explain it to people.

I’ve never had to explain everything we did in worship before – all at once.  I’m not sure how I did with explaining everything, but that’s ok, it was a good exercise anyway.

This has got me thinking about when people come to worship – visitors.  We can’t assume people know what’s going on.

There is an opportunity to explain.  And an opportunity to bring someone into relationship with others, with God, and with facing the realities that exist around them.

How would you go about explaining parts of the service to someone who has no experience with church?  How would you explain communion to someone who has never heard of Jesus?

Death

05 Monday Mar 2018

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Death is rearing its ugly head.  Over the course of the day I will have presided at a funeral and talked with three other families about three different funeral arrangements.

And I will be exhausted.  Death has a way of sucking the life out of people.

In seminary, I took a preaching class on funerals and weddings.  We covered funerals first.  Each of the students got to pick the circumstances and then preach a funeral sermon.   There were 27.  We listened to them all in one day.  That’s a lot of funeral sermons.

And we were overachievers too.  Of the 27, eight were suicide sermons, one mass shooting, and a bunch other odd funerals.  There were a few “normal” funerals too.  They were actually a pleasant reprieve from the heaviness of us overachievers that wanted to challenge ourselves.

Listening to 27 funerals was a challenge.  By the end of the day, we were exhausted and drained.  But at the same time, we heard the promise of God over and over again.  It was undeniable.

I feel that at the end of the day today, the same will be true.  Death sucks, but it is not the end of the story.  It is not the end of our story.  It is the time in which we get to hear about God’s promises for us.  We get to hear the reality of death in our midst and the hoped for promise of resurrection.

These messages are important.  We shouldn’t ignore death or pretend that death hasn’t struck.  Instead, we need to acknowledge that death is in our presence.  But death doesn’t have the final say.  Jesus made sure of that.  And that means that there is more to this day than just sadness.  We mourn because the person we cared for and love is no longer alive and walking with us daily.  But we hope for a promised future in which death will be no more.  A future when pain will be more.  A future where God has transformed and renewed not just us, but all of creation, and come down out of heaven to dwell with us forevermore.

When I conduct funerals, I love to use the passage from Revelation 21 that speaks to this. It is one of the most hopeful passages of Scripture.  It paints a picture of what eternal life will be about – timelessness with the full presence of God.  And God doing what God has always done – God coming to creation yet again.  We don’t escape creation.  We are transformed and renewed with creation and dwell with God forever.

Death sucks, but the promise of resurrection gives us hope.  That doesn’t take away the pain and mourning.  Death means there is separation between loved one.  But in resurrection we look forward to a time when we will be reunited.  Thank God for this.

Funeral in advance

28 Friday Apr 2017

Posted by in Society, Theology

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This week at the seminary was Academy Week – we get to hear several speakers come and talk about a variety of topics.  One of the speakers talked about Revelation and how it wasn’t about predicting the future so much as being written in opposition to the Roman empire – you know, the empire that was crushing people in the known world, that promoted the idea that peace came through crushing one’s enemies, and that everyone must bow and worship Rome.

At any rate, the speaker went on to tell us that a good part of Revelation is actually a funeral for Rome.  It’s the idea of insulting Rome by showing that if it continues on the path it is heading, it will lead to its own demise and death.  And so Revelation is a funeral pronouncement on Rome and everything that goes with it.  It’s also casting an alternative – the reign of God and everything that goes with it.

This got me thinking about the idea of writing a funeral in advance.  It’s a powerful notion.  The whole idea of writing a funeral in advance is a direct smack in the face of whoever/whatever the funeral is for.

It got me wondering, who or what would I write a funeral for in advance?

That’s not an easy question.

Maybe it would be for partisan politics.  The message would be that if partisan politics continues on its path, then it will inevitably lead to its own demise and death.  The power that parties seek will be the same power that crushes them.  But there is an alternative.

Maybe it would be materialism.  The message would be that if materialism continues on its path, then it will inevitably lead to its own demise and death.  The stuff that materialism seeks will finally just bury us alive.  But there is an alternative.

I think you get the idea.

What would you write a funeral in advance for?