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How NOT to preach at a funeral


Buzzard

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I never get why it's called an altar call anyway, the churches that have them generally don't have altars!

I've only been to Anglican and Catholic funerals, all of which have been very respectful and gentle on the bereaved, so these stories just horrify me. The poor families.

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That's awful Buzzard :cry: Just as well the guy was dead.

I'm thinking I want to go to a funeral in Tel Aviv now!

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That is an ALTAR call.

Yeah, but I figured that was what was meant. :lol:

My best altar call story happened when I was probably 4 or 5. We went to a revival and for some reason my mom really, really hated the preacher. So the last night of the revival he starts the altar call out with things like "If you lied this week, come forward." and "If you had angry thoughts towards someone this week, come forward." It was pretty obvious that he was trying to get everyone there to the front. Finally my family is the last people not at the front and my mom and dad are having this whispered argument where he is saying "Let's just go up there so he will end this and we can go home." and my mom was all, "I don't care if you take the kids up there, but I'm not going no matter what he says." So we all just sit there while "Just As I Am" is played over and over and over again on an organ.

The guy is getting really mad that we have ruined his whole "I got everyone to the front on the last night of revival" story and finally says, "If you love Jesus, come to the front." We don't move. So he tries "If you want to go to heaven and not hell, come to the front." We still don't go. By this time nobody up front is even pretending to pray, they are all just watching. So finally when it is obvious he can't get my parents up front he says "Dear friends, I'm not going to say any names, but the Lord has laid in on my heart that there is a family here that has just let the Devil take over their lives. They are on the wide path to hell. Let's end this service by having a moment of silence where we all pray for them in our hearts." :lol:

Everyone was actually greatly amused by what had happened and this story was told over and over again for years in the church. The guy was never invited back again.

~We couldn't have just quietly left the service because this took place while the church was being built and was in this weird, totally not fire safe building where the only exit from this room was just behind the guy preaching. So we would have had to climb over all the people down front and my mother would have rather just stared him down.~

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Yeah, but I figured that was what was meant. :lol:

My best altar call story happened when I was probably 4 or 5. We went to a revival and for some reason my mom really, really hated the preacher. So the last night of the revival he starts the altar call out with things like "If you lied this week, come forward." and "If you had angry thoughts towards someone this week, come forward." It was pretty obvious that he was trying to get everyone there to the front. Finally my family is the last people not at the front and my mom and dad are having this whispered argument where he is saying "Let's just go up there so he will end this and we can go home." and my mom was all, "I don't care if you take the kids up there, but I'm not going no matter what he says." So we all just sit there while "Just As I Am" is played over and over and over again on an organ.

The guy is getting really mad that we have ruined his whole "I got everyone to the front on the last night of revival" story and finally says, "If you love Jesus, come to the front." We don't move. So he tries "If you want to go to heaven and not hell, come to the front." We still don't go. By this time nobody up front is even pretending to pray, they are all just watching. So finally when it is obvious he can't get my parents up front he says "Dear friends, I'm not going to say any names, but the Lord has laid in on my heart that there is a family here that has just let the Devil take over their lives. They are on the wide path to hell. Let's end this service by having a moment of silence where we all pray for them in our hearts." :lol:

Everyone was actually greatly amused by what had happened and this story was told over and over again for years in the church. The guy was never invited back again.

~We couldn't have just quietly left the service because this took place while the church was being built and was in this weird, totally not fire safe building where the only exit from this room was just behind the guy preaching. So we would have had to climb over all the people down front and my mother would have rather just stared him down.~

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

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I have a funeral story that is almost the opposite situation. My aunt's husband was a 'hard-living' jerk who couldn't keep a job, beat his wife, etc. He never went to church, so when he died, the family had to find a minister to perform the ceremony at the funeral home. The minister did a nice job, and talked about what a good man my uncle was, how kind and loving he was, etc. While the minister spoke, some of the people in the audience started looking at each other with confused looks on their faces, as if they were wondering if they were at the correct funeral, since the minister was obviously not talking about the person they knew. I was too young at the time to understand the situation, but my mother occasionally still mentions it.

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Almost every funeral I have ever been to has had an altar call. I've even been to one where the pastor flat out said that the deceased was in hell because he never accepted Christ into his heart. It was terrible, but it was a productive altar call, which is all he cared about anyway. Comforting the family? Helping them say goodbye? Nah, get them sinners on their knees!

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Almost every funeral I have ever been to has had an altar call. I've even been to one where the pastor flat out said that the deceased was in hell because he never accepted Christ into his heart. It was terrible, but it was a productive altar call, which is all he cared about anyway. Comforting the family? Helping them say goodbye? Nah, get them sinners on their knees!

The guy who was going to do my grandfather's funeral was going to do this since, even though he believed in Jesus, he never went to church. My mom and her brothers found out and wouldn't let him do the funeral. We had some random guy the funeral home found, but he did a great job talking about my grandpa's life.

But most funerals around here do involve trying to use the death of a loved one to get people to become Christian.

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The guy who was going to do my grandfather's funeral was going to do this since, even though he believed in Jesus, he never went to church. My mom and her brothers found out and wouldn't let him do the funeral. We had some random guy the funeral home found, but he did a great job talking about my grandpa's life.

But most funerals around here do involve trying to use the death of a loved one to get people to become Christian.

Yeah, that's pretty much what this was. He asked that we, in the memory of the deceased, use social media to spread the "word.". I believe I have compiled, just using different "words."

I have found a good use for Ray Comfort's trillion dollar bill. Perhaps the LORD and google shall see fit for it to rank high on the image search for Ray Comfort and Pastor Paul Diamond.

post-315-14451997865396_thumb.jpg

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These stories horrify me! Sorry you had to go through that, Buzzard and everyone else who described such a mess.

The few funerals I've attended have been Conservative or Reform Jewish ones. Sometimes family members have needed to clue the rabbi in, since the deceased hadn't been to a service in decades, but they've generally listened, taken notes, and done pretty well at comforting the family. The rest consisted of family members getting up to speak, so it was very personal.

I guess I've been lucky in only going to funerals that were about the deceased, and the family's comfort. Rabbis aren't going to do an altar call, but I'm sure there are some who would make it all about themselves or their message of the moment. We haven't gotten stuck with one of those yet.

I don't know what I would do in a funeral where it was turned into an evangelical platform. I guess I'd get up and leave the room, if it was physically possible.

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Almost every funeral I have ever been to has had an altar call. I've even been to one where the pastor flat out said that the deceased was in hell because he never accepted Christ into his heart. It was terrible, but it was a productive altar call, which is all he cared about anyway. Comforting the family? Helping them say goodbye? Nah, get them sinners on their knees!

Didn't Jesus say to comfort the widows? How about charity and comfort to your neighbors? Would Jesus not want the family to be surrounded by love rather than threatened that they're not "doing it right?" no one knows what went through anyone's head in their last moments... Whether they saw the flying spaghetti monster or fully repented and washed the feet of Jesus, who are they to judge? If you want to read scripture, have at it, it's a funeral and I'm in your church... But do not pretend to know the will of god (even presuming that the deceased is partying with god because YOU decided he was good enough.)

Atlanta is the "city of trees" but it really could be called the "city of churches." I refuse to believe that the church across the street is "right" but the one over there is "wrong.". Assuming they feed the same homeless, comfort the same sick, and pray to the same god, how can one be damned? If god was great enough to create a world from nothing can he not get his message across clearly?

When Jesus said "the way to the father is through me" or something to that extent I cannot accept he meant " my way or the highway." Do good, love others, love life... Not "pass Ray Comfort's test."

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Almost every funeral I have ever been to has had an altar call. I've even been to one where the pastor flat out said that the deceased was in hell because he never accepted Christ into his heart. It was terrible, but it was a productive altar call, which is all he cared about anyway. Comforting the family? Helping them say goodbye? Nah, get them sinners on their knees!

I have never been to a funeral or any church service that included an altar call. That just isn't part of the Catholic or Lutheran world. I can't even imagine hearing the minister flat out say the person was in hell. I'd walk out.

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If the preacher who gave the eulogy at Mama's funeral said shit like that, I would have gone postal and made a big scene. That is not a eulogy. That is a hellfire and damnation sermon. :evil:

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I am so sorry that you had this experience. There is little less comforting than coming out of a funeral angry.

The whole altar call thing was more or less absent in my upbringing or any of the churches I've purposely attended (liberal Methodist and liberal Presbyterian) and I've so far mostly missed out on funerals that made attendees angry. I attended a pre Vatican II with headcoverings Roman Catholic funeral for a coworker's son who had died of a very rough cancer at 19. The priest explained, that the boy, like Christ, had died for our sins--it was our fault he was dead. The protestants at the funeral were all pretty angry about this, and the other coworker at our company who attended that church (not the grieving father) tried to explain it to us, but it never made sense.

At my husband's grandmother's funeral, the idiot lay minister doing the graveside service said there was no way to know if she was in heaven as she might have backslidden over the last few years, as he noted she had not been attending church or volunteering as she once had, but we should hope that her heart had been with God, even if her actions didn't show it . She had been in a nursing home the "last few years."

I've been to one funeral and one wedding that had altar calls. No one "went forward" and at the funeral the minister kept pounding at it for a while. The widow told us later "he was really not supposed to do that." The irony here was that this funeral was for my cousin's husband who was an asst. minister at a church and who was my family's go to minister for funerals because, regardless of the faith of the person who had died, he could and did provide a service that honored the deceased and made the mourners feel better. Some of us said it was too bad he couldn't have preached his own funeral. . .

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I have a funeral story that is almost the opposite situation. My aunt's husband was a 'hard-living' jerk who couldn't keep a job, beat his wife, etc. He never went to church, so when he died, the family had to find a minister to perform the ceremony at the funeral home. The minister did a nice job, and talked about what a good man my uncle was, how kind and loving he was, etc. While the minister spoke, some of the people in the audience started looking at each other with confused looks on their faces, as if they were wondering if they were at the correct funeral, since the minister was obviously not talking about the person they knew. I was too young at the time to understand the situation, but my mother occasionally still mentions it.

Ah, my SIL, who had not been in church since she was in school until she got cancer the second time, where upon her reliance on prayer for a cure resulted in a more rapid death had a similar funeral. Those of us who knew her and her husband knew that 1) he was her 4th husband, 2) that she had multiple affairs including with a close family member, 3) they had lived a sexless marriage in separate rooms for at least half their marriage, 4) they had nearly divorced a couple of times. The boy minister, who preached the sermon and had lead the failed prayers for healing talked about the beauty of their marriage while those of us who knew the couple just listened, wide eyed. Toss in a 15 minute eulogy of her uncle explaining that she was perfect (using that term, over and over) and frankly, many of us thought "wow, what a great revision..."

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I have a funeral story that is almost the opposite situation. My aunt's husband was a 'hard-living' jerk who couldn't keep a job, beat his wife, etc. He never went to church, so when he died, the family had to find a minister to perform the ceremony at the funeral home. The minister did a nice job, and talked about what a good man my uncle was, how kind and loving he was, etc. While the minister spoke, some of the people in the audience started looking at each other with confused looks on their faces, as if they were wondering if they were at the correct funeral, since the minister was obviously not talking about the person they knew. I was too young at the time to understand the situation, but my mother occasionally still mentions it.

A few years ago when I was still going to church, I always sat behind a sweet elderly couple. The husband always spoke to me & my kids, was always smiling & seemed like a kind, Good Christian Man . The wife never spoke & seemed really shy.

He died unexpectedly (his tractor rolled over on him) & at the funeral I met his children in the receiving line. I told them what a wonderful man their father was, always smiling & with a kind word for us. They looked uncomfortable, then one daughter took my hand & said, "I don't know who you're talking about, but it's not my dad. He was a horrible man. He beat us kids, drove us away from home & made mama's life a living hell. I'm glad he's dead."

What do you say to that?

After he died, his wife became a completely different person, always laughing, smiling & talking.

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Ohh, the Etiquette Hell website has a bunch of these stories, involving both weddings and funerals. In one, the bridal party exited the church, but before the guests could follow members of the church locked and blocked the exits. Then proceeded to rant on about how if the guests didn't convert right then and there they were all going to hell. This went on for something like 30 or 40 minutes. Others were fire and brimstone sermons at funerals, where the minister couldn't even get the deceased's name right. Others declared that the deceased was at that moment, burning in hell. Just awful stuff.

We were lucky when my mother passed away. The Priest who lead her funeral knew her well. He really did a wonderful service for my mom. Even Mr. Tribe got a little teary eyed (he'd never admit it though) It was a very touching. At her wake, the phone rang, it was a Nun who had been visiting Mom in hospice. She'd been out of town and didn't realize Mom had passed. Very sweet kind woman.

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I belong to a Southern Baptist church; my husband's funeral was there, three years ago. There was NO indication that the minister expected anybody to do anything except remember my husband fondly. Several people spoke, there was a slide show, then the minister escorted me and my family out, after announcing that there would be refreshments in the Fellowship Hall. I've been a Baptist all my life, and have never, ever experienced an "alter call" at either a wedding or a funeral. Obviously, my "branch" of the Baptist faith is missing something.

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I haven't been to a funeral that had an actual altar call, even when there was a Baptist or Evangelical minister leading the service. If there was mention of religion, it was because the deceased was religious, but it was still respectful to those who were of other faiths.

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Buzzard, sorry about your friend. What happened is the last thing you need when you're grieving.

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I belong to a Southern Baptist church; my husband's funeral was there, three years ago. There was NO indication that the minister expected anybody to do anything except remember my husband fondly. Several people spoke, there was a slide show, then the minister escorted me and my family out, after announcing that there would be refreshments in the Fellowship Hall. I've been a Baptist all my life, and have never, ever experienced an "alter call" at either a wedding or a funeral. Obviously, my "branch" of the Baptist faith is missing something.

Your branch of the Baptist church is not missing a damn thing! They're doing it right. Is the altar call phenomena a recent thing?

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Your branch of the Baptist church is not missing a damn thing! They're doing it right. Is the altar call phenomena a recent thing?

Around here I think it's more independent & freewill baptist funerals. I've never experienced the hellfire/damnation/altar call funeral in a Southern Baptist church.

I did attend a couple of weddings at my old freewill baptist (now nondenominational) church that had altar calls. The pastor's excuse was that the family requested them because "most of the guests are lost & this is the only time they'll come to church." Talk about weird. I would have been mortified if it were my wedding.

BTW, another name for altar call is "invitation." That's the word I heard most often, but forgot about it since my godless self hasn't been to church in so long.

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I was being tongue-in-cheek, but you probably knew that. It must be a recent thing, because I'm elderly and have been to a bunch of Baptist weddings and funerals without ever witnessing an alter call. At the end of scheduled services, there is a period of "invitation" so that anybody who wants to join the church, profess faith, or simply have a word of prayer, can do so. Also, the various ministers are always in their offices during the week. Weddings and funerals have purposes.

Sorry, that seems to be a sore point for me.

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At the funeral for one of my grandfathers, the priest was pretty much a tool. My grandparents on that side were Byzantine Catholic, so there was tons of incense, a cantor, etc. The priest was very strict, by the book, and despite knowing my grandparents, didn't bother to personalize the service and actually speak about him at all. What he did do, though, was give an awesome lecture on who exactly was NOT eligible to come up for communion, and how wrong it would be if you took it and weren't eligible. If you even thought you might not be eligible, please stay in your seats. It's safer for us all. My immediate family was not Catholic, and we were sitting there like- Dude, we're not going to come rushing you for the communion wine, calm down!

I had the exact same experience last year, at the funeral of a family friend.

"Some of you may be Christian, but if you're not OUR type of Christian, then no communion for you!"

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Wow.

The first person I thought of was classmate's brother, when we were in middle school. He committed suicide. I only went to the wake (I think because my parents were afraid the funeral would get too fire and brimstone-y), but my mom went to the funeral and I remember she told me the priest made a big deal about how only God knows what he was thinking and God is forgiving so we can hope he is in heaven like everyone else who has passed. Pretty much the opposite of this funeral.

That is awesome. My pastor has had to preach at funerals for suicides. When I asked him about what he thinks/says, he said the deceased is clearly mentally ill. God wouldn't send a mentally ill person to hell for being sick any more than he would send someone who succumbed to cancer to hell.

We had a guest pastor this morning (regular is on sabbatical for a few months). He talked about preaching a funeral once; the other pastor he shared the pulpit with decided to damn the deceased to hell because she hadn't attended church in a decade. The dummy forget she had been bedridden for that long. :doh:

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Around here most Baptist pastors will spend a hour talking about the deceased and the other hour is mostly preaching. Some might have "altar call" for those who want to accept Christ. Then they have the final solo by a lady who can put Whitney Houston or Barbara Streisand to shame! It is during this time that family and the congregation emotionally fall apart. Crying, fainting, etc.

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