Thursday, 17 December 2009

Importance Of Rites In A Christian Funeral Service

By Francis Mayfield

For a devout Christian, a funeral is a celebration of the soul's journey towards eternal life from thereon. Christian funerals are uplifting, because of their religion's belief that the soul has finally found an eternal home in the House of God.

Death is welcomed by Christians openly, with the belief that it is an exit from the world of pain and a passage into the world of everlasting happiness. It provides solace to the grieving family and friends arising from the death of the person. The Christian funeral rites are performed by devout Christians keeping these beliefs in mind.

Christian funeral ceremony is usually officiated by the pastor. They are generally conducted at the church which the dead person used to visit during his or her lifetime. Usually the services do not have casket, but in case the service is being conducted inside a funeral home, caskets are very often present. Viewing of the deceased's body is generally not found in a conventional Christian funeral service.

The proceedings in such a funeral ceremony are more like a memorial, in which devotional songs and similar prayers are sung and texts from the Bible are read out loud. Then the pastor delivers a message and the people join in with a mass prayer.

Next the family and relatives share their sorrows with the gathering, and the people express their feelings and respect for the deceased and share their thoughts on how the dead person touched their lives and left an everlasting void. Some families also opt for doing a visual display of photographs of the dead person or play a video recording from the life of the deceased.

The final phase in the ceremony is that of a short reception that is held in the church itself and some food is served. A graveside service is usually not included, but some make an exception to this.

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