The Reason for This Book
My own first experiences in ministry and my conversations with those new to this challenging vocation have made it clear that when a person is dying or when a death occurs, ministers are expected to help in a way that no one else is able to help. To do this they need a variety of resources to guide them through the stages of suffering, loss, and grieving, and as they prepare for a funeral service or life celebration. The same need for resources is a reality for the person who is called on as a good friend to help family members when a loved one is dying or has died. This book brings a wide range of resources together and is offered to all those who stand ready to help families at the testing time of bereavement.
But what does this mean in practice?
Consider these situations: You are new to ministry and you receive a call from someone in your congregation: “My wife, Sara, is in the hospital; the doctor has just told me there is nothing more he can do for her. Can you help us?” Or a staff member of the local funeral home calls with news that one of your members has passed away and the family has asked, “Will the minister take Alfredo’s service?” Or a member of your congregation comes to the office and confides, “Alice, our youngest, is behaving strangely. Did you know that Gavin, her brother, died six months ago? What shall we do?”
The news that a church member does not have long to live or that a family needs you to take a funeral or celebration of life service, or that you are needed to deal with feelings around the loss of a brother or sister present major challenges in ministry. My sense from talking and working with the committed and compassionate individuals who are fresh to ministry is that they want to gain all the skills and confidence they can to comfortably and confidently carry out these tasks. This resource is designed to make their pastoral care and worship leadership tasks easier and to encourage them to create their own resources.
However, you do not have to be in an order of ministry to be called on to help in a pastoral way or with the service when someone is dying or has died. For instance: You have a friend who is dying; the family members are gathered but are not sure how to face up to his approaching death. They are exhausted through being constantly at the bedside and are in danger of becoming ill themselves. This question is posed to you as a good friend: “We are worn out and are looking for some practical help. What can we do?” Are you able to respond in an appropriately pastoral way?
Another situation: You have been asked by the family of a person who has just died to lead the service. You have led Sunday worship before and have had some training in this area, but realize that a memorial service or funeral is something very different. What is the order for the service? What prayers should you use? What do you say at the graveside? What else will the family expect of you? Where do you turn to for the help you need?
Or a family member asks you to give a talk (or eulogy) about someone whom you knew well who has died. You have the public speaking skills, but what should be included in the talk and what left out? You are not sure.
Or again, you are approached by a family who did not have an interment for their loved one’s cremated remains at the time of the funeral. They ask, “We want to scatter our loved one’s ashes respectfully, but do not know how to do this or what we can say. Can you advise us?”
For the good friends who are asked to patiently be with dying persons and their families, to preside at funeral or interment services, and to provide pastoral care after the services are over, help is essential and it has to be given in simple and understandable language.
There are programs for instructing both lay and ordered ministers during their training and internship times, but they are necessarily limited in scope and duration. There are also good resources for the specific stages of dying and bereavement. For lay persons who are asked to help with the bereavement experience, there are the same printed and video resources available and courses for those who search them out. What is lacking is the simple, comprehensive, one-volume resource to supplement the training. It is this need that I have attempted to meet with A Good Ending.
There is also a need for a resource that family members can use, one where they can look for readings for a funeral service, for prayers for the bedside of a dying person, and for insights they can glean to help them with a person whose time of grieving seems endless. The book will prove a valuable resource for them.
There are many resources that centre on the funeral or celebration of life service. They are concerned with preparing and writing the meditation or sermon, the order of service, the prayers, scripture readings, and sometimes how the eulogy is to be prepared and delivered. The focus of these books and other resources begins with the time when the officiant is asked to take the service and ends when the remains of the person who has died are committed to God’s eternal care at the cemetery. Similarly, there are books that focus on the compassionate skills of pastoral care.
These resources are excellent in meeting the questions surrounding specific stages of death and dying, but my experience gleaned from many years of ministry is that the bereavement experience needs to be considered as a whole; you cannot separate the funeral service from the pastoral care given to the dying person and family members and friends before and after he dies. There are three key stages that form an essential entity: first, pastoral care for the dying person and his family; then the funeral, memorial, or celebration service; and finally, the post-service pastoral care. Together they make for a good ending.
You will see later that the pastoral element of compassion is key to the meditation or sermon, and that the person who is pastorally caring to the family is the one who is in the best position to officiate at the service.
Death, the Ever-Present Reality
There is no “Get out of Death Free” card. Each one of us will die, and as the years go by and our bodies age, the reality of death is something we increasingly come to terms with, or choose to ignore. Neither is there any immunity from death for our well-loved family members. Some have lived good and fulfilling lives and have died at a ripe old age feeling good about the work they have done and the relationships they have established. On the other hand, some have died well before their time, never having achieved any sense of direction or a satisfactory relationship during their brief human existence.
The way we face the reality of our own coming death and how we have faced the bereavement experience in our own family circle will make a significant difference to the way we care for families who turn to us in times of bereavement. It was 15 years after the death of my own father that I was forced, during a pastoral care course, to confront the fact that I had failed to adequately grieve his loss. I came to realize that this was a factor affecting the way in which I ministered to those who had suffered losses of their own. If you find that your own bereavement experience is a barrier to helping others, then it makes good sense to look for skilled help in order that your ministry is effective and relevant.
Difference between a Funeral, a Celebration of Life, and a Memorial
The terms “Funeral,” “Memorial Service,” and “Celebration of Life” are used interchangeably in common practice. They do, however, have different traditional meanings:
A funeral is a ceremony or service for celebrating, respecting, and remembering the life of a person who has died, with the body present at the ceremony.
A memorial is a ceremony or service for celebrating, respecting, and remembering the person who has died, without the physical body present. There may be cremated remains present during the ceremony or service.
With a celebration of life there may or may not be cremated remains of a loved one present, but the emphasis in the service or ceremony will be on a tribute to the person who has died.
In future years, I envision the further blurring of the three terms and that the term “funeral” will commonly be used whether the physical body is present or not.