funeral
We need ritual for our collective grief
Going through the motions together can move us toward healing.
What I left out of my mother’s funeral sermon
I told the truth about her but not the whole truth.
Black men I’ve mourned
I’ve preached more than 800 funeral sermons. Many of these deaths have marked me.
Preaching in the valley of actual death
My task at funerals is to share the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Green burial as an act of faith
A growing number of Christians are embracing natural burial practices.
A call to death
One gift of being a pastor is that death stands right in front of us. We understand that our days are numbered.
Burying William: Funeral for a gang victim
I didn't start my day thinking about gang killings. But then a man showed up and asked about a funeral for his nephew—on Palm Sunday.
Song: Essays by readers
In response to our request for essays on song, we received many compelling reflections. Here is a selection.
Ask a mortician
Morticians haven't charged too much, they've done too much. With this precisely correct claim, Caitlin Doughty earns her contrarian stripes.
Why I agreed to officiate my grandmother's funeral after all
Even though I preached at my father’s funeral, I remembered how meaningful it was for me to sit in the front row between my brother and mother, to sing and pray with them. I wanted to do that again.
The next day I changed my mind.
I know she's still with us. (She's sitting right over there.)
I found this June NYT article a bit disturbing: some funeral home directors have been placing dead people in lifelike, meticulously personalized poses for their own funerals.
It's easy enough to see this as just a continuation of the standard individualistic funeral treatment, honoring people's hobbies and interests.
Acquainted with grief: The church’s way with death
Regular churchgoing does not make you a friend of death. But if you sit in the pews long enough, you cannot help getting acquainted.
Speaking to mourners: The evolution of funeral sermons
In 1983, Kenneth Mitchell and Herbert Anderson wrote that "death is only one form of loss." This would have been unthinkable for Christians half a century earlier.
Grace is wide enough: At the funeral of an atheist
We are gathered here in a Christian church as participants in a Christian memorial service to honor the life of Richard, a man who said that he did not believe in God. What right have we to do this? It would certainly be an affront to his memory were we, by this service, to deny him the right to have been the man he was. We cannot pretend or even suggest that he really was somehow, despite his insistence to the contrary, a Christian believer. Indeed, it would be a scandal if we who claim to honor Richard’s memory did not allow him, by his unbelief, to call into question our Christian belief.