Homegoing Service Program

The order of service, written out

This is the order most Baptist, AME and Church of God in Christ congregations follow, with the names and details invented. Copy it and replace them.

When the service is smaller, or held at the funeral home rather than the church, families cut it to about forty-five minutes by dropping the second selection, folding the acknowledgement into the resolutions, and asking three people to speak instead of opening the floor.

If a term on the program is unfamiliar, or you are trying to decide who should be listed beside it, this is what each line means in practice.

A fuller comparison of how this order sits alongside other traditions is on the funeral order of service page, and there are line-by-line versions for six kinds of service in the order of service examples.

Cover wording: sunrise, sunset and the name

The cover carries a photograph, a heading, the full name, and the two dates. Give the name the title the church actually used. If she was Mother Sinclair for forty years, she is Mother Sinclair on the cover. The same is true of Deacon, Elder, Evangelist, Missionary, First Lady and Reverend.

Other headings families use, all of them ordinary and correct:

“The Late” before the name is traditional and is used throughout the program, including in the acknowledgement. It is not cold. It is how the church has always written it.

What goes on each page of the booklet

Homegoing programs are keepsakes. People put them in Bibles and keep them for decades, which is why they run longer than most funeral programs. Eight pages, made by folding two sheets of letter paper in half, is the usual shape. Twelve or sixteen pages is normal when there are a lot of photographs.

If you are printing this yourself, the fold and the page order are the part that goes wrong. The program sizes page has the measurements, and funeral program printing covers paper weight and how to get an eight-page booklet to come out in the right sequence.

The obituary, or Life Reflections

The obituary in a homegoing program is longer and warmer than a newspaper notice. It usually names the church she joined and the year, the auxiliaries she served on, her work, and then the family, in order. The phrase “leaves to cherish her memory” is used far more often than “is survived by”.

Print the line The obituary will be read silently under the heading if it is not being read aloud. More complete examples, including short newspaper versions of the same life, are on the obituary examples page.

The survivors list is the one part worth checking twice with someone else in the family. It is read closely, and a name left out of a program is remembered for years. Write it out, read it aloud to one other person, then set it.

Resolutions, reflections and remarks

A resolution is a formal tribute written by a group she belonged to: the usher board, the missionary society, the choir, a lodge, a sorority or an employer. It is read from the pulpit and a printed copy is handed to the family. Most groups write their own and send it to the family a day or two before the service. If none arrives, nothing is missing from the program.

Reflections are the open remarks from the floor, and they are the reason services run long. Two things help, and neither is rude: print “two minutes, please” on the program beside the word, and ask one person, usually a deacon or the mistress of ceremony, to stand when the time is up. Some families skip open remarks entirely and list three named speakers instead. That is a normal choice, not a cold one.

You are allowed to do less than you think. A homegoing with two selections, one reader, one speaker and the eulogy is a complete and proper service. Nobody counts the pages.

Acknowledgement, pallbearers and the back page

The back page carries the family’s thank-you, the people who carried and served, and the funeral home credit. Write the acknowledgement in the family’s voice and sign it with the family name.

Grandsons and nephews are the usual pallbearers, and honorary pallbearers are named without being asked to lift anything, which is how older friends and church officers are included. There is more on who to ask and how many you need in pallbearer duties, and thirty more acknowledgement paragraphs in funeral acknowledgement wording.

Scripture and selections families choose

These are the passages read most often at a homegoing, in the King James wording that most congregations expect to hear.

• “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”

  Psalm 23:1 (KJV)

  Often read in unison by the whole congregation.

• “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.”

  John 14:1 (KJV)

  Usually read through verse 6.

• “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”

  2 Timothy 4:7 (KJV)

• “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

  Matthew 25:21 (KJV)

  Short enough for a cover or a prayer card.

• “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”

  Psalm 116:15 (KJV)

• “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

  Psalm 46:1 (KJV)

The full text of Psalm 23 laid out to fit a program panel is on the Psalm 23 page, with more passages in Bible verses for funeral programs.

Selections

Hymns in the public domain, printed with the author and year in case you want the verse in the program:

The gospel selections families ask for most are newer and still under copyright, so list the title and the composer on the program rather than printing the words: “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” (Thomas A. Dorsey), “Soon and Very Soon” (Andraé Crouch), “Goin’ Up Yonder” (Walter Hawkins), and “I Won’t Complain” (Rev. Paul Jones). Ask the musician what the choir already knows before you print anything. A longer list, with first lines, is on the funeral hymns page.

How many to print, and when to send it

Order more than you expect to need. Homegoing services draw more people than the family plans for, and the program is the thing everyone takes home. A rough way to decide: count the seats in the sanctuary, add twenty-five for the repast and for relatives who want extras, and print that number.

If nobody in the family lays out booklets for a living, this is the part to hand off. Reposa asks you the questions in the order above and builds the whole eight-page booklet, the obituary, the prayer cards and the slideshow from the same answers, so the sunrise and sunset dates are typed once and appear everywhere correctly. If you would rather start from a blank design, the funeral program templates page has the layouts.