A mixed bag

2nd July 2013

It has been a day of mixture. In fact a typical day of ministry.

This morning I attended a funeral service for a long time member of Fairview. The service was conducted by the Director of Spiritual Growth (who knew the lady well) and a past pastor of the church.

It was a slightly odd experience to attend a funeral and have no connection with it. In other words it wasn’t as if I was taking part in the service or I knew the deceased or her family.

The liturgy used was very different to ours. Fewer prayers and more informal. And (to be technical for a moment) there was no discernible commendation or committal. (For Brits the committal is the bit where traditionally the words “earth, to earth, ashes to ashes” are said.)

That said it was a lovely service with genuine heartfelt tributes paid.

One very noticeable difference was that the coffin was open before the service for people to pay their respects. Apparently in most instances most people would go and do this at the undertakers. But in this instance (partly because of timing) the coffin was open prior to the service.

The coffin was the big type we are familiar with from films and TV shows. And at the graveside there was an elaborate mechanism to lower the coffin in to the ground. The grave (and about 20 seats for family) was covered with a large gazebo. So things are very different.

And one noticeable difference between here and home is that the funeral took place within about 3 days of the person dying. Whereas in the UK it is not unusual to have 2 weeks between the death and the funeral. (I must admit to feeling the short gap must put huge pressure on the minister and the church for making the funeral arrangements.)

Then this evening Tom and I went to meet the youth group. Great fun. They reminded me so much of Youth Fellowship back at home even to the extent that one of them seems accident prone like one of our members.
So a real mixture of a day but typical of ministry.