Weddings, Funerals, and Special Events

Overview

Mastering Ceremonies.

In today’s secular society, the only personal contact many people have with a pastor is some public occasion: a wedding, funeral, baby dedication or baptism, an awards ceremony.

These settings, where clergy are front and center, offer unique opportunities to minister.

The bubbling joy or the piercing grief of these events waken people, if only for a moment, to pastors and to the divine realities they represent. Birth, death, and human achievement become, in C. S. Lewis’s words, “a megaphone to rouse a deafened world.” And pastors who are called upon to lead, officiate, or pray during these events do well to consider how to speak clearly through them.

This book offers clear, tested counsel on how to prepare for special occasions and how to conduct the events themselves. Each chapter is written by a pastor who has had extensive experience in that area. These church leaders relate honestly their failures and successes—and the lessons learned—as they’ve ministered during weddings, funerals, and special events.

This is the tenth volume of THE LEADERSHIP LIBRARY, a continuing series from LEADERSHIP, the practical journal for church leaders published by Christianity Today, Inc. Others in the series have included Well-Intentioned Dragons, Learning to Lead and Preaching to Convince.

More than a collection of theory, THE LEADERSHIP LIBRARY provides practical, proven ways to handle the most difficult areas of everyday church life.