In a small church, the pastor leads funerals for people he has known for years. He has sat at their bedsides, prayed with their families, and watched them age. The funeral is the final act of pastoral care for that person and the beginning of a long season of care for the family they leave behind.
It is also, in many small communities, the most public ministry the pastor does. The funeral draws people who have not been to church in decades. It draws the unchurched neighbors, the estranged family members, the community members who know the deceased but not the church. Handle it well.
Before the Service: Preparation
Meet with the family as soon as possible
Go to the family within 24 hours of the death. Do not call ahead if you can avoid it. Just go. Your presence is the message. When you arrive, listen more than you speak. Ask about the person who died. “Tell me about your mother. What do you want me to know about her?” The stories they tell will become the material for the service.
Gather the stories
A funeral that is full of specific, true stories about the person who died is a funeral that honors them and serves the family. Ask the family for three or four specific memories. Ask what the person was known for. Ask what they would want people to remember. Write these down. Use them.
Clarify the theological situation
Before you prepare the service, you need to know whether the person who died was a believer. This is not always clear, and it is not always comfortable to ask. But it matters enormously for how you preach the service. A funeral for a person of genuine faith is different from a funeral for a person whose faith was uncertain or absent.
At a funeral for a person of uncertain faith, you can say: “I do not know the state of [name]’s heart before God. That is not mine to know. What I do know is that God is merciful, that Jesus died for sinners, and that the gospel is for everyone in this room today.” That is honest. That is pastoral. And it opens the door for the gospel without false assurance.
is the ideal length for a funeral message. Long enough to be substantive, short enough to respect the family’s grief.
about the person who died make the service personal and meaningful. Generic platitudes do not.
belongs in every funeral. The question is how to present it honestly given the specific situation.
The Service Structure
A simple, effective funeral service structure:
- Opening prayer (2-3 minutes) , acknowledge the grief, invite God’s presence
- Scripture reading (2-3 minutes) , Psalm 23, John 11, or another passage of comfort
- Tributes from family or friends (5-10 minutes) , if the family wants them
- The message (20-25 minutes) , stories about the person, the gospel, comfort for the living
- Closing prayer (2-3 minutes) , pray for the family by name
- Committal (at the graveside, 5-10 minutes)
The Message
The funeral message has three elements:
Honor the person who died
Use the specific stories you gathered from the family. Be honest. You do not have to pretend the person was perfect. You do have to honor what was genuinely good about them. A funeral message that sounds like it could be for anyone is a funeral message that honors no one.
Comfort the living
The family is in acute grief. They need to hear that their grief is legitimate, that God is present in it, and that there is hope beyond it. Do not rush past the grief to get to the hope. Acknowledge the grief first. Then offer the hope.
Preach the gospel
Every funeral is an opportunity to present the gospel to people who may never hear it in any other context. Do it honestly, do it clearly, and do it with compassion. The person who came to the funeral as a skeptic and left having heard the gospel clearly presented has been served well, even if they did not respond.
Difficult Situations
Suicide
A funeral for someone who died by suicide requires particular care. Do not speculate about the person’s eternal state. Do not minimize the grief of the family by rushing to theological answers. Acknowledge the complexity, the pain, and the questions. Preach the mercy of God. Refer the family to professional grief support.
A person of no apparent faith
Be honest without being cruel. You can honor what was genuinely good about the person without making promises about their eternal state. You can preach the gospel to the living without implying that the deceased is in heaven if you do not know that to be true.
A contentious family
Sometimes the family gathered at a funeral is not at peace with each other. Do not take sides. Do not address the conflict from the pulpit. Focus on the person who died and on the gospel. The funeral is not the place to resolve family conflict.
It is a gift to the family, who need someone to lead them through the hardest day of their year. It is a gift to the community, who need to hear the gospel in a moment when they are most open to it. And it is a gift to you, because it reminds you why you do this work.