Your Congregation’s Commitment to Deathcare

Education:

Educating your congregation about their legal rights, moral responsibilities, and opportunities for communal healing begins at the pulpit. However, ministers can also receive support from a well-informed congregation, lessening any logistical responsibilities.  Establishing a committee or a Mañara Society (see the link on our website) can provide your congregation with pertinent information. Much like a bereavement group, a Mañara Society obtains information that can be shared with your congregation via handouts, on your website or when a death occurs etc. Sharing information about local funeral homes, hospices, hospitals, and other organizations that may have a vital role when a death occurs will empower your congregation to make good, well-informed decisions that model your church’s teachings, while being good stewards of the earth and bereaved.

Commitment to Stewardship:

Committing your congregation to stewardship of the earth and bereaved will afford your community the opportunity to redefine how it understands death and heals from grief. Similarly, your congregation will be empowered to responsibly care for the earth, restricting its imprint on nature to good things like healing and sustainability, and choosing simplicity over extravagance. Committing your congregation to the best deathcare practices available to your community will require collaboration with local organizations and funeral homes so that each congregant’s rights are upheld and your congregation’s commitments and healing processes are respected by the larger community. Your congregation’s commitment to stewardship will be part of its legacy, giving future generations something to aspire to and a foundation to build on. 

Community Support:

It is important to understand that every family’s ability to afford funeral costs varies. Even though your congregation’s commitment to stewardship will remove many of the frivolous costs associated with deathcare, such as embalming and the elaborate caskets and vaults, simplicity will still be expensive for some families in your congregation. Establishing funds to support low and middle-income families, either through monthly collections or fundraisers, will empower your congregation to best care for its congregants while maintaining its commitment to the poor. If your congregation owns a cemetery, consider changing your prices to a sliding scale so that the community can support all its members, while also permitting sustainable practices at the cemetery. Additionally, open your congregation to families and allow them to visit the deceased in your worship space or community hall.

Electing Policies and Endorsing Principles:

Every congregation has teachings or principles that uniquely define it as a communal body, faith tradition, or denomination. In solidarity with those beliefs, your congregation can establish policies and principles that model how the congregation can become good stewards. Upholding these principles and policies within you congregation will offer your community a framework to assist with deathcare decisions, such as committing itself to stewardship. The Institute on Religious Deathcare and Spiritual Healing offers such a framework for communities (see our ethical framework on our website). You are welcome to use ours, expanding upon it as needed.

Spirituality and Healing:

Spiritual healing is a large facet of good deathcare. Empowering families with those practices that allow for an opportunity to begin their healing process will ultimately help in the communal healing and peace-making of a congregation. Removing consumption and those practices that inhibit a family’s healing process will allow each family to redefine itself in the absence of a loved one, while finding hope as they imagine their future.