When I became a senior pastor over four and a half years ago, I had been in ministry for over fourteen years and had done many of the usual things ministers do: pastoral care, counseling, planning, officiating weddings, preaching, lock-ins, and more.

One thing I’d never done is officiate a funeral. Associate ministers are not often called on for that particular task. 

Since January 2020, I have now officiated twenty-three funerals of congregants. When I officiated my first in January 2021, I remember being worried because I didn’t really know the congregant well— COVID and a lack of interest in long phone conversations on their part assured that. 

In the time that has passed since that first funeral for a “green” senior pastor, funerals have become both easier and harder. Easier because I have lived experience, and harder because now I’m burying friends.

These are funerals of individuals with whom I’ve broken bread, shared significant life moments, and heard stories of events that took place long before my life began. 

These are friends who a younger version of me would never have thought I’d have. Ninety-three year olds, friends in hospitals, friends with children older than I am, and friends who I’ve served side-by-side with in ministry. They were people I have laughed with, cried with, and prayed with more times than I can count. 

I have found each passing funeral harder and harder to write because now I’m now not just sharing stories told to me, but stories from my own experience. Stories that bring laughter and tears, not because I heard them, but because I lived them. 

There are many different understandings of how a funeral should be done. I’ve sat in funerals that were an hour long invitation to become Christian, funerals where the pastor took the dates of a person’s life and filled it in with historical events rather than personal stories, and funerals where the service brought more grief than attendees had coming in. 

My personal belief is that a funeral should celebrate a person’s life and leave those who attend walking away with a better understanding of the person and tears of joy at the memories shared. There should be no guilt or lack of personal knowledge of the person. Funerals should be threefold: times of mourning what has been lost, celebrating memories of life shared, and worshipping God for the faith and resurrection the person has experienced in Christ.

This is why funerals have become harder for me as a pastor burying friends. Sure, you can do those things if you don’t know the person, but it is hard to do them well— especially the second one. Celebrating a person’s life well is harder to do when you don’t know them. When you do, it’s even harder because you’re celebrating a life that has intersected with your own. 

Tomorrow, I say goodbye to yet another friend. He was fifty-six years older than me. He was a widower. Yet, he was a friend who has forever changed my life. 

This is a part of ministry we pastors don’t often talk enough about. A part that is both life-giving and difficult. 

Tomorrow, I bury a friend–– the second in five days. Today, I am thankful for the fact that our lives, stories, and moments intersected in the holy space God has given to us— if but for a short time.