Funeral Order of Service Template

Traditional church or chapel service

The default order for most Protestant and non-denominational funerals in the United States. If you have not been told otherwise by the officiant, start here.

A note on the asterisk: printing *Please stand beside the processional, and again beside any hymn the congregation sings, saves guests from watching the front row to know what to do. If you use it, add one line at the foot of the panel explaining it.

Catholic funeral Mass

A Mass of Christian Burial follows a fixed liturgical order. Your family chooses the readings, the music, the gift bearers and the readers, but not the sequence. Confirm the wording with the parish before printing, as some parishes have their own house style.

Words of remembrance are permitted but not required, are usually limited to one speaker, and are expected to be brief. If the parish asks you to leave them out, the eulogy can move to the vigil the night before or to the reception. The Catholic funeral program template page covers the rest of the booklet, including the prayers families most often print alongside this order.

Homegoing service

The homegoing order in the Black church tradition, including the resolutions and acknowledgements that a Protestant funeral usually does not have. It runs longer than a standard funeral, so expect this one to need more than one panel.

Resolutions are short formal tributes read on behalf of a church board, an auxiliary, a lodge, a club or an employer. Ask the church office early who intends to present one, because each adds a minute or two. Full wording is on the homegoing service program page.

Memorial service

Use this when there is no casket present, either because cremation has already taken place or because burial happened privately. Memorial services are often held weeks after the death, which means there is more room for people to speak and less pressure on the clock.

If nobody in the family wants to lead a memorial service, a friend or a celebrant can host it. It is a real role and it makes a difference: someone has to say when it begins, keep speakers on time, and tell the room where to go afterward.

Graveside service

A graveside-only service is short, held outdoors, and everyone is standing. Keep it under twenty-five minutes. Programs for a graveside service are usually a single flat card rather than a folded booklet.

Military honors are provided at no cost for eligible veterans, arranged through the funeral home. They come after the committal, in this order: the rifle volleys if there is a rifle party, then Taps, then the folding and presentation of the flag. Ask the officiant whether the benediction comes before the honors or after them. Military funeral program covers the wording, including how to note branch, rank and years of service.

Celebration of life

Less formal, usually not in a church, often hosted by a friend rather than clergy. It still helps to have a written order, if only so the host knows what comes next and the room knows when it has ended.

Two things worth deciding in advance for an open-sharing segment: who starts it, and who ends it. Ask one person to speak first so the silence does not stretch, and give the host a closing line to use when it has run long enough. More on the format is on the celebration of life program template page.

Filling in the blanks

Every bracket in these templates needs a real answer, and most of them come from three phone calls: one to the officiant, one to the funeral director, and one to whoever is handling the music. Gather these before you sit down to fill anything in.

Two habits that prevent the mistakes families most regret. First, read the finished order aloud to one other person before it goes to print; misspelled names in a program are permanent in a way nothing else about the day is. Second, check the service time on the day you send the file to the printer, not the day you wrote it. Times move.

Making it fit the page

The order of service goes on the inside right panel of a folded program, which is a smaller space than it looks. Here is roughly what fits at a comfortable reading size.

If yours is running over, cut in this order: the sub-line naming who performs each piece of music, then the second reading, then the instruction lines, then a reflection speaker. Shrinking the type below 10 point is the wrong answer, because a large share of the room will be over seventy and reading in dim light.

You are allowed a shorter order

These templates show the full version so that nothing gets forgotten. They are not a standard you are failing to meet. A welcome, one reading, one song, a eulogy and a closing prayer is a complete and dignified funeral, and it fits on a single card with room to spare.

Once the wording is settled

The order still has to be typeset, matched to a design, and printed with the folds in the right place. Funeral program templates covers doing that yourself, and funeral program printing covers paper, quantity and where to have it run off.

If you would rather not fight with a word processor this week, Reposa asks which kind of service you are holding, fills the order in from your answers, and lays out the whole program as a print-ready PDF. To see how these orders look once they are finished and filled in, the order of service examples page has six complete ones, and funeral order of service explains what each element is and how long it takes.