Jason Clark

First week of November 2003, we held the funeral of Cheryl, 37, wife of Simon, and mother of two children, Ben 7 and emily 5.

At Cheryl’s request, there were no dark colours, and all the women wore bright hats. As I stood to lead the service, we had 300 people in bright colours, on a glorious sunny day in a beautiful anglican church. It felt like a wedding.

We all cried as Cheryl came in, her flowers on her coffin in bright colours. We shared, sang celebrated. Cheryls’ story was told from birth to death, and tributes were made to her life…and what a life. Her husband praised her, her inspration to him, and love, and help as a new christian.Then we had a party next door with music, balloons and food.

A few christians came up to me and said “let’s pray who we can witness to in here?”, or “did Simon make a profession of faith before Cheryl died, so she knew he was a christian?” etc…I understand why they asked, but however well meaning, inside I was shouting, “did you not see, hear the most wonderful morning of evangelism ever…Cheryls’ life and death story?” They wanted me to tag on the story of why people need to believe Jesus so they go to heaven when they die…

By contrast my wife who sang and I had 3 hours of conversation about life with dozens and dozens of non/pre christians…and they all asked, and spoke about their life, and how impacted they were by Cheryl, and finished with…where does your church meet? You see I realised that a christian who lives well, is an evagelist, and it would be wonderful if the fruit of Cheryl’d teaching us to die, was to see her friends drawn closer to christ.

I didn’t need to bait and switch them, they new how important Jesus was to Cheryl, and saw it incarnated at the funeral. Any how I’m rambling, and probably just emotionally over processing, so forgive me.

One final thought, was my wife and I said if God gave us 30-40 years to do this again and again with people in our community, how deep could we really connect with so many people, and see them come to faith. A funeral has given me so much hope.

Jason