One of my great joys in life is witnessing a team of men fulfill their commitment to provide consistent and effective care to their care receiver for as long as they need it.
Sometimes a team of men fulfills their commitment to a single mom or a widow at a wedding, when their care receiver remarries. But as men’s team ministries around the world now begin surpassing ten and even fifteen years of faithful service, most often they celebrate their commitment at a funeral, when their care receiver dies.
Now that my church has had a men’s team ministry for fifteen years we have seen numerous care receivers pass on to glory. And I must say, attending these funerals has become a great joy of mine.
For one thing, the care receivers themselves are saints. Celebrating their amazing lives and meeting their families is such a blessing.
But there’s something else that makes these funerals special: the presence of the care receiver’s team of men. Sometimes these team members share their experiences of serving their widow during the service. Sometimes they even serve as pallbearers. But always, the family members tell me after the funeral what an impact these men have had on their own lives.
The testimony of those men makes it easy for me to share the gospel with the family and to explain that this is what it means to be a Christian; that those men were simply doing what Christ commanded them to do. Scripture calls their type of service “adorning the gospel.”
Jesus prayed in his great high priestly prayer in John 17: “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message,?that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.?May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”
Faithful teams of men celebrating their commitment to their care receiver at a funeral is one truly exceptional way for any church to experience what Jesus was praying for.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
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Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom
and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.
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2 thoughts on “Why I Love Attending the Funerals of Care Receivers at Our Church”
l’ve been extremely privileged to have had lots of help from my team headed by Roger. l would .not still be in my house, unless l had received their most welcome help all the years since 2004 (14 years). They ARE MY SUPER HEROES; you can bet your life on that!
They truly are amazing men, Kathy!