I will speak at my first funeral tomorrow.  Our pastor is officiating, but I have been asked to speak as well since I am the associate pastor and the deceased is a member of our church.  To the extent that we are able to know such things, it is a relief to know that he was a Christian.  What does one say otherwise?  His name is Sammy.
 
Two things stand out when I think about him.  First, it was always apparent that he loved his wife, who whent Home a couple of years ago.  They didn’t have a lot of the things we think of as important, but they had love.  Life doesn’t have any meaning without that.

The second thing is that our church was his family.  Our pastor is managing his estate because there was nobody else who could be found.  it points to the importants of relationships in the church.  Reach out to those around you.  They may not have anyone else.  Treasure life.  You don’t know how long you will have it.  Treasure the lives of others for the same reason.  There was no immediate reason to suspect that Sammy’s death was coming so soon.  We didn’t know him as well as we probably should have.  We did go to visit him a couple of times.  His passing has caused me to stop and think about the relationships I have both inside and outside of the church.  I am motivated to pursue them with purpose.

I ask your prayers for all of us as we absorb the shock of another death so close on the heals of losing a well loved member last year.  We’ve had quite a few since Linda and i have been coming.  I believe in the mission of this church, but if we do not find a way to revitalize it, we will quite literally die.