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As a pastor, I went to more funerals than most people. As a result, my kids go to more funerals than most kids. But I noticed that in recent years kids have rarely if ever been present at funerals I’ve attended. Sometimes you will see kids of the affected families show up, but rarely anything beyond that. The absence of kids and teens from funerals is something that needs to change.
I think there are large societal shifts that have led to this happening in modern America.
1. We are increasingly mobile — The average American moves nearly 12 times in their lifetime according to census data. We only see people in snapshot segments of life. We don’t grow up in a particular place with a particular people. As a result, in general, we don’t know others well enough or long enough to be aware of sickness and death in their families.
2. We are increasingly overprotective – Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation, is right: we are overprotective in the real world and under protective in the virtual world. Mostly motivated by pure and loving intentions, we are so afraid to expose our kids to what we believe could be a harmful situation in real life. But in our good desire to protect our kids from harm, we can unintentionally protect them so well they grow up unprepared for the joys and pains of life. A funeral isn’t harmful to kids; it’s beneficial to their emotional growth and understanding. As parents we must not only protect our kids from harm but also prepare them for the difficulties they will face in life.
3. We outsource family life like never before — To be clear, I’m not against outside childcare providers or skilled nursing facilities. But the reality is that because of capitalism and affluence we have more options for the care of sick elderly family members than ever before. As a result, our kids never see their aging family members as they progress on their slow march toward death, so they have difficulty putting into context their own mortality. They only see the young and beautiful family members who are never sick. And to protect our kids from the pain of loss (and others who are mourning from the pain of our kids’ behavior… but that’s another post), we also have more options for someone watch our kids while we go to a funeral.
Why we need to make a change.
1. Our kids need to see brokenness and death and understand they are mortal. They need to see they are lost and need a Savior. Funerals, like no other social setting, make us ask, “How am I living my life?” Our kids and teens need to ask that question or at least watch you model how to wrestle with it.
2. Our kids need to learn how to show up, what to say and when to keep quiet in response to others’ pain. In Western culture, and even in the church, we have become so pain averse that we avoid people who are in pain as if they have the plague. We must teach our kids that when people are in pain, we just show up.
3. Our kids need to see that this life is not an unending train of happiness, lollipops and butterflies. If that is how they see the world they will miss the beauty all around them. It isn’t until we are confronted with sickness, sin and death that we can truly love the good gifts we have been given by our gracious Father in heaven. Our culture has an obsession with being young and beautiful. We must help our kids see the wisdom in old things and the power of trust that only comes from walking through difficulty.
4. Our kids deeply need to understand the beauty of the Gospel which is the only answer to the fear of death. In the poem “Time,” George Herbert, my favorite poet, beautifully explains our kids’ need for the Gospel that will set them and us free from the fear of the death:
“…For where thou onely wert before
An executioner at best;
Thou art a gard’ner now, and more…”
The power death had before it was conquered by Christ is no more. Death used to be our executioner from whom we ran and avoided at all costs. Now, because of the power of the Gospel in our lives, death is not to be feared for all it can do is plant us, as a gardener plants his crop, into eternal life. Our kids need that Gospel truth. They will not get it if they don’t see death and then see Jesus as victor over it.
“Funerals are mandatory, weddings are optional.”
— Mayor Rudy Giuliani
I read this over twenty years ago and have never forgotten it. It comes from Mayor Giuliani’s book, Leadership. Up until that point, I had avoided funerals. They’re difficult. It isn’t easy to be confronted with your own mortality on a regular basis. But Giuliani’s quote is actually a restatement of Ecclesiastes 7:2–4:
Better to spend your time at funerals than at parties.
After all, everyone dies—
so the living should take this to heart.
Sorrow is better than laughter,
for sadness has a refining influence on us.
A wise person thinks a lot about death,
while a fool thinks only about having a good time (NLT).
One of the dangers of pastoral ministry that every minister must resist is the intoxication of success. There are few things like walking off the stage after doing a keynote to people clapping followed by people lining up to either ask your opinion or tell you how well you did. It makes you feel really good. It does. I remember one conference I was at where someone asked: “How do you keep all those comments from going to your head?” My answer was the local church. The people at my church don’t really care where I speak; they only care that I care about them.
The other thing that helps me not think more of my self than I should is funerals. If you haven’t held the hand of a person breathing their last breath you really should, it will change you. If you haven’t prayed with someone you have known for years who has stage four cancer and has declined to the point that you don’t recognize them, you really need to.
I go to and officiate numerous funerals each year, and without exception, each funeral I go to reminds me of how fleeting success is, how temporal this life is. There is nothing like a funeral to put social media followers, blog stats and speaking requests in perspective. Success is not based on the size of the church you work for or how many children attend your kids or youth ministry, but by how you answer the following questions that I ask myself at every funeral:
1. Who do I love?
2. Who do I trust?
3. What am I building?
How you answer those questions are both convicting and telling. If you are a young leader, start going to every funeral you can because this life isn’t all there is.
Join us this year as we journey through Holy Week.
Sam Luce is the Director of ChildDiscipleship.com at Awana. He co-authored Forming Faith, writes at samluce.substack.com, and is a frequent speaker. A former pastor of 28 years, Sam holds an M.A.BTS and a M.A.CCS from Knox Seminary. He is a current doctoral candidate at Western Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Sandra, have four children and live in Upstate New York.
