A pastor writes in to ask, quote, have you personally conducted funerals for non-Christians?

If not, would you?

And if you did, what would be your thoughts in doing it?

And how would that funeral be tailored differently from the funeral of a believer?

Pastor John?

I have, I have, but not many, I haven't done many funerals for unbelievers.

When I came, I made the decision just because of priorities here, and I wouldn't encourage

every pastor to make this decision.

I didn't encourage the funeral homes in the area to look to me as a burying pastor.

Because a lot of people, they come to funeral homes, they don't know anything about the church,

and they don't know how to have a funeral, and they look to some person.

Now, others on our staff have done that explicitly.

They're available, and so they go and they make it a ministry to unbelievers to do funerals.

Now, I've done some, and I would say that what I do is make sure the family knows I'm a Christian pastor.

This funeral will be done.

If you want me to do it, I'm going to speak from the scriptures.

I'm going to talk about the good news of Jesus Christ, and I'm going to speak as a Christian.

So don't ask me to be generic, because that's not my job.

I'm not a generic professional burying person.

I'm a Christian herald of the good news.

So if you want me to do that, I'll do it.

And so my approach in the few that I've done has been, I don't talk about the person who's dead.

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