My First Funeral, A Last Minute Funeral and a Midnight Funeral

They never told me in Bible College just how to conduct a funeral. In hindsight, it seems conducting funerals should have been a major subject. The statistics are that about 100 people around the world die every minute. That's 6000 deaths per hour, 144000 per day, more than 52 million per year. Every Pastor is guaranteed that he will have to conduct the funerals of at least a couple of those 52M people each year.

The very first funeral I ever officiated was that of a dear old lady to whom I often gave a ride to church. Even after spending time in the car with her on so many Sunday mornings, about the only thing I knew about her was that she raised rabbits. When she passed away, the Senior Pastor had to be away and assigned me the task of conducting the funeral. Her family lived elsewhere and I had never met them. I spent a few minutes with them at their hotel room planning the service. They did not want it to be too long, but also they did not want it to be too short. They wanted it to be personal, but not too personal. They wanted some Scripture, but not too much Scripture. They wanted this, but not that. It was clear they did not really trust me, but they had no other option. I wasn't even sure what was considered too short or too long. As I began to speak on the day of the funeral, I realized I had covered everything I had to say in the first three minutes, and was acutely aware this was definitely too short. I filled a couple more minutes talking about the fact that she raised rabbits, but I knew nothing about rabbits, so that ended rather quickly and awkwardly. It was at that moment I realized I really knew nothing about this family or the deceased. It was a disaster and the Honorarium I was secretly excited about receiving never materialized.

One Sunday morning, a member stood to ask the church to pray for the family of a lady who had been ill. I asked publicly about her current status, and to my surprise, was told the paper said I was officiating the funeral the next morning at 10:00am. I was speechless and quite rattled by this news. I didn't even know she had died, and again was not that well acquainted with her or the family. As you can imagine, I rushed straight to the funeral home after church to find out what was going on. The long story short is that the family thought the Funeral Home Director had spoken to me and the Director thought the family had contacted me. I spent a few minutes with the family and with God's Grace, we pulled it off the next morning. Thank God for "Prayer Request" time!

My most unusual funeral was a midnight funeral. This story is about Nancy, a Single Mom at that time, with whom we are still friends. This is my memory of that night. About midnight I received a frantic phone call from Nancy saying that her dog had just been hit by a car and killed. "Could you please come over and help me bury the dog right now so my boys will not have to see him dead tomorrow morning." I rousted one of my sons from bed and we went to Nancy's house. She was grieving over the loss of the dog and, I'm sure, grieving over the loss her boys would experience. We took him into the woods behind her house, I with the dog, my son with the shovel and Nancy with the flashlight. Amidst Nancy's tears, I dug the hole, placed the dog in the hole and threw in the first shovelful of dirt. When the dirt landed on his chest, the dog moaned, and Nancy lost it. "Oh no, He's alive! We can't bury him!" She wasn't sure whether to be glad he was alive or terrified that we were about to bury him alive. It took me a few tense moments to convince Nancy that the shoveful of dirt had simply compressed his lifeless lungs forcing the moan from his dead body. Finally she consented for us to continue the "burial service". After a few moments spent consoling Nancy and letting her know I would be available to talk to her sons the next day, the midnight funeral service concluded and my son and I headed back to our warm beds.

So that no one thinks I am being unkind to my wonderful Professors in college, I have to admit that even had there been a course on conducting funerals, no one could have thought to include Midnight Dog Funerals as part of the curriculum.

I now spend time with the families of the loved one who has passed away. I jot down notes from the stories they tell me and that they recount to one another as they remember. I then weave those stories into the comments I have planned for the service. Families love that personal touch and always feel that I have captured the essence of who they are as a family. As one friend said, "People will not remember many of your sermons, but they will remember that you were there during the death of loved ones."