Every minister hears these words. And in that moment, when grief is raw and a family looks to you for guidance, what do you say?
In Eulogy: Remembering a Life through God’s Good Word, I draw on more than 40 years of ministry to offer a practical and biblical guide to one of ministry’s most sacred responsibilities, the funeral sermon.
The word “eulogy” is a compound word transliterated from Greek meaning “good word.” Although the use of the word is broader, as I prepared to share with families and friends at the time of a funeral, I reserved “eulogy” for the message I would share as pastor.
Tony Tench
My attempts always were to share a “good word” about the deceased to celebrate the life being honored on the day, believing folks made in the image of God deserve a “good word” at the time of their funeral. This good word often arises from a family’s tearful memories as well as the testimony of the body of Christ with whom that person interacted.
Throughout the message, then, I looked forward to the ways the Holy Spirit would guide me toward the “good word” from God’s “good word,” the Bible, as a message of hope with which to anchor the family in God’s presence for the journey of grief.
Along the way, in Eulogy I share many unforgettable stories of saints who faced their final days with a joy that could only come from the Resurrection. These stories help illustrate a process of preparation for the encouragement of family and friends and for honoring the Lord’s goodness and grace for life and for facing death.
Eulogy walks readers through various stages of the pastoral journey, from preparing your heart before the call comes, to sitting with a grieving family, to ministering all the way to the graveside. I have written with the hope of encouraging pastors, seminary students and ministry leaders who want to honor the dead, comfort the living and proclaim the gospel. I hope, too, that the book will be a resource for families to think ahead together by sharing their memories.
While living in east Africa, our Malawian friends taught me the wisdom of one of their Chichewa proverbs — nkhwangwa sitwela pa chipala. Its translation is, “The axe is not sharpened at the forge.” Its meaning is, “You don’t sharpen an axe when you make it, you sharpen it when you put it to work out in the field.”
I found that to be true in ministry as well. My seminary days are cherished in my mind and heart for the sound preparation they gave to me for the tasks of ministry. I still think of those lessons often. When it comes to ministry at the time of funerals, there are several authors who have written to equip ministers for this specific area of care and encouragement; I have called on my favorite books often through the years. There also were many lessons I learned from personal experience of “sharpening the axe out in the field” that I wanted to share as an encouragement to other ministers.
“One of my favorite parts of writing was underlining the good news of resurrection.”
As I concluded 40 years of ministry, there also were “stories of the saints” I did not want to lose or forget. I hope such stories will urge families to go ahead now and remember their own stories that have defined their values or flavored the way they approached their days in preparation to remember their loved ones.
One of my favorite parts of writing was underlining the good news of resurrection. The “eulogy,” while speaking a “good word” about the loved one, is always moving toward the “good word” God has given us in the New Testament — a word to which Jesus bore testimony as he taught his disciples of the day when he would be “raised to life.”
Jesus highlights this good news in anticipation of the Easter reality when he teaches in Luke 20:28, “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”
“For to him” points our minds and hearts toward God’s point of view of what it means to face death. This section of the book for me, therefore, is a vital part of a theology that practically addresses the what happens next questions families ask about their loved ones.
Amoyo salekana is a phrase spoken by our Malawian friends when departing from one another. It is translated, “Those who are alive cannot be separated.” The idea is this: As long as we are alive, we may very well bump into each other again along the way, so our parting is not a hard goodbye.
The “good word” at a funeral is much the same. Those who are alive in Christ never will be separated from him or from one another because of the hope and promise of resurrection into his eternal presence.
I am not sure what might end up on my tombstone one day, but I am good with this simple phrase, for it is what I believe in the face of death, and it is one of the reasons I am thankful to be able to write, Amoyo salekana.
Tony Tench is former pastor of First Baptist Church of Shelby, N.C. He and his wife, Janet, enjoy living near their daughter’s family and serving with them at NewSpring Church in Greenwood, S.C.
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