| funerals |
▪ When there is a death within the church Family, please advise the church office and pastor immediately.
▪ The Funeral service, when held at the church and/or where the pastor’s presence and participation is requested, should not be scheduled until the pastor is contacted. The family is responsible for contacting the pastor.
▪ All Funeral Services held at the Church will be officiated by the Pastor or his designee. All services will be a Christian celebrations of the life of the departed and Christian comfort and instruction for those attending the service.
▪ The Funeral Program must be submitted to the Pastor for approval before being finalized and printed.
▪ There are times when the Pastor will provide the facilities to another Christian Pastor who desires to hold a funeral service. The building is not extended to families for funerals but only to Pastors. When this is the case, the presiding pastor should make the arrangements with the church. The family is not to request the church. Such requests will not be granted to families but we will gladly cooperate with pastors.
▪Families must never think that they can select a minister to do anything at church without the pastor’s invitation.
All Clergy participation and others, must first be approved by the Pastor before arrangements are completed.
Funeral Service for an Active Church Member:
Church facilities are provided without financial cost for The Funeral service for an active church member. There is no charge for the use of the Sanctuary. There is no charge for the use of the Fellowship Hall for the family to eat after the Service. There is no charge for the meal for the family. It will be provided and served by the church.
The family need only advise the church office of the desire for the meal.
Active Church Member:
An active church member is a person who is active in the church. Being active is indicated by the following:
A. Must be in possession of current year offering envelopes.
B. Must be supporting the church financially during the past Quarter.
C. Must be attending the church regularly during the past Quarter.
D. Must be designated as Active by the Deacons when A, B & C are un-met. The Deacons consider health and other extenuating circumstances for members who were active until declining conditions prevented their being fully active.
Funeral Service for Immediate Family of Active Member:
Not only does our church exist for our members but also for their families. We are pleased to extend the use of the facilities for the funeral service of a member’s immediate family member.
The Sanctuary may be used for the Funeral service without charge. The Fellowship Hall may be used by the family for the meal after the service and the family is responsible for providing the meal, the preparation, serving and clean-up. There is no charge for Fellowship Hall use in this case.
If the family desires the church to provide the meal, they will be put in touch with the church Culinary Staff who will cater the meal. The entire costs shall be the responsibility of the family. The costs include the food and supplies, and compensation for the preparation and serving. The cost will be determined by the menu and number of people being served.
Immediate Family
The Immediate Family, for this purpose, shall be defined as the Active Member’s Spouse, Mother, Father, Sister, Brother, Child, Grandparent or Grandchild, one up, one out, one down. The church does not recognize common-law living arrangements nor civil unions, nor any same sex unions.
Funeral Service for a Non-Member:
There is a suggested donation of $_______ for the use of the Sanctuary and $ ______ for presiding Clergy and $ ______ for the Musician for the funeral service of a non-member. - Proper compensation is expected for all church personnel involved. Contact the church office for proper forms.
If the family desires to have the family meal in the Fellowship Hall after the service, the meal will be catered by the church culinary staff and the family will cover all expenses. The entire costs shall be the responsibility of the family. The costs include the food and supplies, use of the facility and compensation for the preparation and serving. The cost will be determined by the menu and number of people being served.
Funeral Time
The preferred time for all funeral services will be held at 11:00 AM. The wake, viewing, family hour will begin at 10:00 AM and the Funeral service will begin at 11:00 AM. Some ceremonial presentations may be made during the Family Hour with Pastoral approval.
Final Viewing
The family will view the remains upon entering the sanctuary. - The casket will be closed during the service and will not be opened. This is so that the last thing that the family hears and remembers is the “Word of God.”
Obituary
If the person in not an active member of the church, please do not list them as such in the obituary or publications. You may however refer to them as a Former Member.
Designee
The church will receive information and instruction from only one person in making the Funeral arrangements. Exception to this has caused confusion.
Beulah Baptist Church
Funeral Scheduling Form
Name of Deceased ___________________________________________
Home Address ______________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
Date Of Death _________ Place of Death _______________________
Date of Birth ____/_____/____ Christian □Yes □ No
Membership Church __________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
Next Of Kin _______________________________________________
Address _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Funeral Home _____________________________
PASTOR “B”, WHAT ABOUT CREMATION?
Question: Pastor “B”, Could you explain whether cremation is an acceptable method for the disposal of the believer’s body? Are the Scriptures clear on how the Christian’s body should be treated after death?
Answer: Bro. and Sis. Beulite, some historical background will be helpful in finding a satisfactory answer to your queries. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, were placed in the garden of Eden by divine choice (Gen. 2:15). Eden was breathtaking in beauty, indescribable in wonder, and scintillating in excellence. Eden’s unsurpassed glory was augmented by the fact that man enjoyed unparalleled fellowship with his benign Creator.
To test man, God initiated a probationary period for him as a moral being. God’s purpose was to see whether man, the Crown of His creative wisdom, would render voluntary obedience to his Creator. God said, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:17)
Biblical history shows clearly that man failed this probationary test. Man sided with Satan against God in an expression of deliberate self-will (cf. Rom. 5:12)
The deserved judgment of God fell immediately upon man as mortality began to take effect in his body. The result of man’s sin is sounded out like a drumbeat in Genesis 5, the Bible’s “obituary chapter,” with its eightfold repetition of the words “and he died.”
Infected now with a terminal condition, man discovered that death is a relentless enemy who hounds his every footstep. Although Adam lived 930 years, death finally overtook him (Gen. 5:5). All of Adam’s descendants are appointed to physical death (Heb. 9:27).
It is easy to see that God’s people of all ages have had to wrestle with the problem of the disposal of the body. The obedient believer looks to the inerrant Scriptures for guidelines.
The Bible uniformly presents burial as the normal means of caring for the body of a believer. This is probably because burial contains overtones and implications of the teaching of the resurrection from the dead. The Greek word anastasis means a rising of the body from the dead.
Death is not annihilation. Death is not the passing from existence to nonexistence. At the moment of physical death, a suspension of the union between man’s inward being and his mortal body occurs (cf. Jas. 2:26). The Bible teaches that the suspension is temporary; it will end with the spirit, or soul, and the body being reunited at a future time.
Abraham is a classic example of an Old Testament saint who believed in a careful burial for a loved one in anticipation of a resurrected body. Abraham purchased a cave of Macpelah from Ephron to bury his wife Sarah (Gen. 23:19). Abraham did not succumb to the pagan practice of cremation that was observed by the nations of the time.
Another scriptural example is that of the Lord Jesus. His body was taken down from the cross and carefully prepared by Joseph of Arimathea to be placed in a sepulcher (Matt. 27:57-60). In three days our Lord arose, never to die again.
It would appear, then, that burial is the preferable way to care for the believer’s body at death. Although cremation will have no effect on the believer’s eternal salvation, the practice of burial gives a more telling witness to the hope of resurrection. Christian burial anticipates the glorious resurrection of the body, when the believer will be clothed with immortality, never to die again (1 Cor. 15:53; 2 Tim. 1:10).