As a Clergy or a Celebrant, when someone passes away, you are required to shift focus away from your day-to-day to support a grieving family. This may cause added pressures to an already full workload, however with these various resources, we hope to help you navigate this time with a bit more ease while still fully supporting your grieving families and parishioners.
Grief resources that can help supporting families
- Funeral Planning Guide
The funeral planning guide takes you step-by-step through planning a funeral service. The guide contains:
– Information about what to do when a death occurs and how to go about arranging a funeral, and how Bethel helps you through the process.
– Examples of songs, hymns and prayers to include in a service with the ability to record important collected information. - Funeral Planning Checklist
The funeral planning checklist takes you through everything a family needs to consider when planning a funeral or celebration for a loved one. - Eulogy Planning Guide
The eulogy planning guide takes you step-by-step through preparing for a eulogy. The guide contains:
– A range of beautiful poems, readings and scriptures to include throughout the service.
– An example of a pre-written eulogy.
– A template for you to create your own eulogy with expert guidance. - Exploring Grief and Loss, plus an interview with a grief counsellor
Grief is the normal and natural response to loss. It might be the loss of a loved one or a friend, but there are many other losses in life, including pets, jobs, dreams we have for our future or the end of an era. Use this article to help people understand what they are experiencing and to hear helpful tips from a grief counsellor. - Grief Journey Guide
The grief journey guide is a carefully curated resource for those who are experiencing grief. Death gives us the chance to understand the essence of life and how precious it is. The guide takes you through the grief process and ways to lighten the load.
Tips on helping grieving parishioners
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4).
This verse isn’t just a pretty platitude it has practical value. Mourning is about the public expression of grief, so when we mourn with other people we are able to find some comfort with and through them. This is largely experienced at a Funeral, but grief doesn’t just ‘stop’ at the end of a Funeral – it will continue in varying forms and levels of intensity for some time.
There are several ways you can help your parishioners’ journey through the grief process. Some ideas include, holding weekly support groups and education services can comfort a group of people and connect them with people experiencing similar emotions. Experience suggests that people gathering with ‘like’ grief are able to find better comfort through these types of groups as there is more understanding of the specific range of emotions felt. You may find there are other groups already operating in the community that you can connect families with – rather than setting up and doing everything yourself.
operating in the community that you can connect families with – rather than setting up and doing everything yourself.
Holding a memorial service to remember those who have passed away in the previous year can be a very healing time. Creating follow up cards and prayers to send to families in the year of a death. Asking the congregation to help organise meals for families who have lost a loved one following the funeral service. You may also like to offer reading materials and resources around funerals and grief to families.
At Bethel Funerals, our networks are extensive, allowing us to guide families to the right people and resources that will meet their needs. If you need extra support in managing people dealing with their Grief Journey, please give us a call:
Monday – Friday, 9am – 5pm
Victoria 03 9873 8866
Queensland 07 3219 9333