Ready-to-use funeral services for difficult situations. Each service is set in a ministry context and includes a sample sermon, Scripture text, and prayers. Miscarriage, Premature Delivery, Stillbirth, Infant Dies in Sleep, Infant is Fatally Injured, Infant Dies In Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Infant Dies Due to Mistreatment, Child Drowns, Child Dies of Serious Illness, Child Dies in Accident, Child Dies Due to Mistreatment, Youth Dies as Driver in Car Accident, Youth Dies as Passenger in Car Accident, Youth Dies of Serious Illness, Youth Murdered, Youth Dies Accidentally, Youth Commits Suicide, Youth Dies as Victim of School Violence, Student Dies in Hazing, Student Dies of Untreated Mental Illness, Student dies of accidental overdose, Adult Dies of a Serious Illness, Adult Dies in Prison, Adult Completes Suicide, Adult Dies in Random Act of Violence, Adult Dies in Work Accident, Older Adult Dies in Nursing Home, Older Adult Dies of Serious Illness, Older Adult Dies Alone The Just in Time! series offers brief, practical resources of immediate help for pastors at an affordable price.

The pastor fills a unique role in wedding service planning. This slim volume helps the pastor offer care with sensitivity while addressing the spiritual needs and complexities of weddings in today’s world. Following a brief introduction to a variety of wedding situations, including interfaith and second marriages, the author provides prayers, litanies, Scripture readings, and meditations for every aspect of the wedding service from processional to declaration of intention, Scripture and other readings, prayers, exchange of vows and rings, unity candle and other uniting rituals, and more. The Pastor’s Wedding Toolkit includes guidance on: Local Legal Requirements Church Policy Statement Pastor’s Policy Statement Interfaith Marriages Second and Subsequent Marriages Wedding Information Form Basic Music Guidelines Brief Wedding Meditations on: A Christmas Wedding The Music of Love The Genesis of Marriage To Blossom in Marriage To A Well Known Young Couple There Is Love Renewing Your Vows And more . . .

Ready-to-use worship resources for the 4 Sundays of Advent, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Epiphany

Jesus: God's Unlikely Revelation Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany Services includes biblically-based sermons, suggested scriptures, children's time, hymn and prayers, as well as litanies for lighting the Advent wreath. Also included are suggestions for seasonal funerals. These services offer a completing message of hope during this important church season, when people often visit a church for the first time. Each service focuses on and celebrates a different aspect of the theme: Jesus: God's Unlikely Revelation 1. First Sunday of Advent- Jesus: The Unlikely Image of God (Genesis 1:26-27; Colossians 1:15-17) 2. Second Sunday in Advent Jesus: The Unlikely Gift from God (Isaiah 55:1-9) 3. Third Sunday of Advent Jesus: The Unlikely Story of God with Us (Matthew 1:18-25) 4. Fourth Sunday of Advent Jesus: The Unlikely Messiah (John 7:25-31) 5. Christmas Eve Jesus: An Unlikely Peacemaker (Luke 2:8-20) 6. Christmas Day An Unlikely Christmas Card (Matthew 2:13-23) 7. Epiphany John the Baptizer: Jesus' Unlikely Herald (John 1:1-14) Seasonal Funerals

“Wise, vulnerable, and surprisingly relatable . . . funny in all the right places and enormously helpful throughout. It will change how you think about death.” —Rachel Held Evans, New York Times–bestselling author of Searching for Sunday We are a people who deeply fear death. While humans are biologically wired to evade death for as long as possible, we have become too adept at hiding from it, vilifying it, and—when it can be avoided no longer—letting the professionals take over. Sixth-generation funeral director Caleb Wilde understands this reticence and fear. He had planned to get as far away from the family business as possible. He wanted to make a difference in the world, and how could he do that if all the people he worked with were . . . dead? Slowly, he discovered that caring for the deceased and their loved ones was making a difference—in other people’s lives to be sure, but it also seemed to be saving his own. A spirituality of death began to emerge as he observed the family who lovingly dressed their deceased father for his burial; the nursing home that honored a woman’s life by standing in procession as her body was taken away; the funeral that united a conflicted community. Through stories like these, told with equal parts humor and poignancy, Wilde’s candid memoir offers an intimate look into the business of death and a new perspective on living and dying. “Open[s] up conversations about life’s ultimate concerns.” —The Washington Post “As a look behind the closed doors of the death industry, as well as a candid exploration of Wilde’s own faith journey, this book is fascinating and compelling.” —National Catholic Reporter “[A] stunner of a debut.” —Rachel Held Evans, author of Inspired

After sixteen years of being deceived by Satan that I had committed the unpardonable sin, God gave me a dream one night and told me exactly what was wrong with my mind. Supernatural deliverance came as a great man of God prayed for me (T. L. Lowery) under a big tent with sawdust everywhere. God has called me to visit people who don't have long to live and share the gospel. Most thought they were ready to die but realized they were not saved. God would place them on my heart, and he would have their hearts prepared for his loving visitation to them, saving them from the fires of hell-that's what this book is about-quite a bunch of characters who accepted Christ and so many are already in heaven today. Some are still alive-anyone who gets saved is saved just in time. Good moral people, alcoholics, so many God has placed in my path, seeing Jesus in the rooms with them before death. If we will always keep our ears open to hear God 24/7, we will always hear his voice of instruction. This book also tells of my family's supernatural journeys to get to God. The dark fought us all the way. Daddy prayed to get saved-couldn't reach that point of faith-he lay back in bed and felt like a wooly worm was beginning to roll up his legs to get inside his heart. He cried out to God-it left and he became a Christian that 3:30 a.m. The devil tried the same tactic with me the night I was saved. Under a tent, starting to creep up my legs, telling me that the minister was going to tell me that I could never be saved because I had "gone too far."