Pastoring the Grieving – Give them context

I noticed that this Sunday, a few churches made assisted dying and the Christian response their sermon topic. I couldn’t help think that it was a little bit late for this.  Yes,  the Bill has still got further stages to go but the wheels are already serving motion.  More than that though,  now is too late to be attempting to help people build the case.  That’s why it has been so frustrating to see very little engagement with the issue up until now.

Furthermore, if I’m right that euthanasia arises out of a culture of death and the whole Christian worldview offers the answer to death suffering and the desperate need for autonomy by offering a culture of life, then you have already been doing the ground work if you have been teaching God’s Word and preaching the Gospel faithfully.

This drew my attention to two thoughts relating to the mini series I’ve been doing on pastoring the bereaved.

First, there is a specific thing about responding to the public ethical issue of euthanasia. The other day, I reposted my article about being there when things moved from treatment for cure  to palliative care.  I’ve been there when that shift has happened. I’m also pretty certain that in a few cases the person had known for some time that they were dying and may have had the terminal diagnosis but didn’t tell anyone else.  I wonder how much an assisted dying law would have changed the nature and dynamic  of conversations between patients and doctors,  relatives and patients and relatives and doctors. And I would argue that any such change will be for the worst. 

So we are, by campaigning against this horrific bill not just getting involved in public ethics. We are pastoring the future bereaved today.

Secondly,  just as the preaching that is needed to respond to the current ethical issue is long term, Gospel-centric and expository, so too if  it is going to prepare people for terminal illness and death whether for themselves or a loved one.

Back at our last church, I once spoke at an Easter evangelistic event on “death does not have the final word.” That theme took hold and shaped much of our teaching focus as a church, a phrase that echoed down through almost a decade.  The feedback we got was that this had been key in helping people prepare for death and bereavement when the time came.

So, we pastor people not just in the one to one  immediacy of the crisis but in the big picture shepherding of the whole congregation over time through our preaching and teaching.