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Pastoral practices — Equipping to Serve Better

Leading a Funeral

From dying or from shock to grief that lasts.A funeral is a ministry. One does not play with it.

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FREN← Equipping to Serve Better · The path

Start by placing yourself

It is not the same thing to arrive here at 11 p.m. with a death on your hands — or on a Tuesday morning, cold. Choose honestly.

It is now
A death has just happened
Read nothing else. Go to the Pocket Card : the gestures of the first two hours, the forbidden sentences, what must on no account be said tonight. The rest can wait.
I am training
No one has died today
Then you have time to learn — and it is now that you must do it.No one learns to comfort while he is comforting. Start with step 1, below.
It is me
The grief, this time, is mine
You have buried someone you loved. Or you are hollowed out, from too many.Then none of this is for you today. That sheet is. No one ever told you that you had the right to fall apart.

Five situations, before you go any further

They will happen. They have happened to everyone who has done this work.Take one second for each — then open it. These are the five nights no one gets through alone.

1The widow says to you : “ He is in heaven now, he is watching us. ” What do you answer?see
Nothing, tonight. One does not correct a doctrine over a coffin : you would lose the woman without winning the truth. You note it, you carry, you walk with her — and the word that gives light will come in the follow-up, when the heart is ready.Defer on purpose, without ever letting go. And never mistake a word torn out by pain for apostasy. →The Servant’s Bearing
2The family prayed for healing. He died. They say to you : “ We did not have enough faith. ”see
Gethsemane. Christ asked that the cup might pass.It did not pass. His faith was perfect. An unanswered prayer proves no lack of faith —no one has ever believed more than He did. Set that burden back down for them : it was never theirs. →Facing Suffering
3A veterans’ association, a society, a corporate body wants to perform its rite at the graveside.see
You forbid nothing and you do not argue.You have them go first. You coordinate beforehand. They do what they have to do — and the last word over this grave is yours : the resurrection. No one has been humiliated, and the truth has had the last word. →The Committal
4“ Pastor, are we allowed to cremate Dad? ” — at 11 p.m., on the phone.see
The Adventist Church has no theological position on cremation. And here is the argument to give : He who drew Adam out of the dust does not need a body to be left. The resurrection does not depend on what remains. It is a word that sets people free — above all a family with no means, or one whose body was never found. →Preparing the Service
5After the service, someone slips you an envelope.see
You refuse —without humiliating. The Church already pays you from the tithe. If the family insists on giving, let them give to the church, or to a work in the name of the deceased. And remember the reason beneath it : the day one can pay for your funerals, the poor no longer have a pastor. → The Servant’s Bearing
The first is the heaviest of the five. It is the one where we do the most damage while thinking we are doing well— and no one ever taught it to us.

Where to begin

Do not start at number 1. Start with what you will be, before what you will do. The rest only becomes readable afterwards.

1

How to be — before knowing what to dothe only compulsory one

Your gestures speak before your mouth. Silence is a ministry. One word too many destroys a week of presence.If you read one sheet in your life, it is that one.

The Servant’s Bearing· ≈ 10 min
2

What you believe about pain

Everything you will say at the bedside flows from this.God is not the author of their pain— and you must be able to defend it, not merely recite it. You never have to find a meaning in this death. And remember : Job’s friends were sure of themselves —and they were wrong.

Facing Suffering· ≈ 15 min · Badenas, Peckham
3

The road — two doors, six stages

An expected death is not a sudden death : two entrances, two first hours. Then the same road — the first hours, the service, the wake, the grief, the committal, the follow-up.

The full path· ≈ 1 h · sheets 02 to 10
4

What will fall on you one day

A divided family. Suicide. A child. A pregnancy that stopped. A deceased of another faith. A refusal. The grief no one names —and the father, whom everyone always forgets.

Difficult Cases · The Grief No One Names · Outline of the Sermon · The Servant over Time

The three tools

To be taken out of the file — not to be read.

With the family

The Preparation Checklist

Everything to be decided, in tick-boxes. To be handed to the level-headed relay —not to those most stricken.
For you alone

The Pastoral Assessment

Six axes to read a grief and calibrate your presence — right up to knowing when to hand it on.Never wave it in front of the family.
To hand over

The Deuilmètre

A gentle mirror for the bereaved. It gives no grade — but it says, gently, when it is time to speak to someone. It carries its own limit: it is not for the griefs no one recognises — and it tells them that complaining to God is not a sin.
Practise

Practise walking with the grieving

Three moments of grief — the first hours, the deceased far from God, grief that lasts. At each step, you choose your move; the simulator tells you whether you console or you teach. Graded answers, a review at the end.
The whole corpus, offline
Everything is there, bound, with a clickable table of contents. To print — or to keep on the phone, for the night when there is no network. (22 sheets, 134 pages.)
Download the full PDF (French) See the 22 sheets Hymns (EN) — SDA Hymnal Presenting the Path
Suggestion