How to provide post-funeral spaces for remembering
Explore the ways you can support bereaved families below
MANY CHURCHES REPORT THAT SERVICES to remember loved ones who have died are growing faster than almost any other kind of service. Whether it’s a personal memorial or a service with others, families have a clear need after the funeral – a need which the church can help with.
Remembering someone alongside friends and family, or with others at a service for that purpose, can offer people the space to grieve for whoever has died. Here are just a few ideas:
Private services
- The first anniversary of a death is often a time when the pain of loss resurfaces or intensifies, but there are also other times when people feel the need to mark a date, such as a birthday, and remember the person who has died. Be open to developing a bespoke memorial service for a family, planning as far in advance as you can. The ‘Invitation to remember’ card below may help you contact those who may be thinking about some kind of service.
Special times
- Remember to mention your ‘All Souls’ or equivalent service to all those who have had a funeral in the last year or even further back. You can publicise this on your website, and/or contact the bereaved families directly.
- The title ‘All Souls’ may not mean much to those who are not used to church. Even though that is what it is, another name, such as ‘Service for the bereaved’ may help them identify it is a service specifically for them.
- Special dates like Christmas, Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day can be difficult times for people, whether bereaved recently or long ago. Think of these people when planning sermons ahead of these services. Include appropriate prayers for those who are finding the season of celebration difficult.
- Consider putting on a different kind of service at a separate time from the main celebration to specifically cater for bereaved families. See below for more possibilities.
More ideas
Remembering on Mother’s Day
It is such an obvious idea in a church context, but for the last few years, we have always had a candle stand out on Mothering Sunday for people to light a candle as they come back from communion. The impact on the congregation has been enormous.
Mothering Sunday is one of those days which is supposed to be a really joyful one and so many people find that really impossible for all sorts of different reasons that we all know about pastorally, so to have a space to light a candle really connects with people. Not rocket-science, liturgically speaking, but very powerful.
Idea sent in by Buckinghamshire vicar.
A remembering tree
At St Barnabas, Dulwich we wanted people to be able to record the names of people they love but no longer see, and to pray for themselves and everyone who was grieving. We decided to ask a woodcutter to create some trees on wide log bases that we could invite people to hang wooden discs (bought from eBay) with their loved ones’ names on.
The trees are outside the church door for a week leading up to All Souls and are brought into church for our service. We make sure that all the names on the discs were read aloud during the service. We then hang the discs on our Christmas tree amongst all the other decorations – and will definitely be using our trees again as a focus for prayer at other times during the year.
Idea sent in by Cathy Myers, Vision & Strategy Team
A prayer memory box
Involve the whole congregation in prayers in a personal way, for example, before the service, in your invitations, suggest people bring a postcard with them – colourful or plain. Then have a fairly large, attractive box ready at the front of the church. Invite people to write a brief ‘memory prayer’ on their postcard to say thank you to God for special memories of a person they are remembering that day – perhaps a particular memory of good times with them, or writing their name on the card simply to remember their whole unique life – and place it in the box. Some suitable music could be played while people bring their cards to ‘post’ in the box.
As an alternative to the box, cards could also be pinned onto a display board instead. This idea can be used during a service, or as a way for people to remember throughout the day by dropping into the open church.
Monthly memorial service
Merry Evans shared this idea which may be helpful for churches that do a lot of funerals:
We have had a monthly memorial service in my parish for some years. As we take large numbers of funerals each month, it was felt that a service of memorial would be of benefit for the bereaved families. For a long time, this took the form of a weekly parish evensong which simply had prayers and a sermon that were focused on the needs of the recently bereaved. We decided to re-imagine our liturgy to make it more accessible for bereaved families who have little experience of church.
The same liturgy is used each month and the hymns which are sung are chosen from the list of twenty or so which are regularly chosen for funeral services. The idea behind this is that those who attend should be able to sing along with at least one or two hymns. We are lucky enough to have a choir of up to 14 individuals who also sing a song carefully chosen by our organist. This gives the congregation the opportunity to reflect on the talk, remember their loved ones, to listen to the words of the song or just to sit peacefully.
