LDS Funeral Program

The order of service, written out

Names and places below are invented. The order is the one a ward service normally follows, and it will look familiar to anyone who has sat through a sacrament meeting: welcome, hymn, prayer, talks, hymn, prayer.

When the family is small, or scattered, or the burial is in another state, a graveside service on its own is complete and proper. It takes about twenty minutes.

You are allowed to do less than you think. There is no requirement that a funeral have four speakers, two musical numbers and a printed booklet. A hymn, a prayer, one person telling the story of a life, and a dedication at the grave is a whole service. If this week has room for only that, it is enough.

The full program, panel by panel

Most LDS funeral programs are a single sheet of letter paper folded once, giving four panels. That is the right size: enough room for the order of service and the family, not so much that someone has to fill it. Print the front and back, fold, and you are done.

Use the maiden name on the cover. It is how her cousins, her friends from school and half the ward will look for her, and it is the name on the family records. There is more on panel layout and folds in funeral program format, and the paper sizes are on the program sizes page.

Who does what

Nearly every part of the service is given to a family member. That is the point: the ward carries the arrangements so the family can carry the service.

Ask people to speak before you print the program, and confirm the spelling of every name on the phone rather than from memory. A misspelled grandchild is the mistake families notice first.

Hymns and musical numbers

Two congregational hymns and one or two musical numbers is the usual amount. These are the hymns chosen most often for a Latter-day Saint funeral, all old enough to print a verse in the program if you want to.

Several favorites are newer and still under copyright, so put the title on the program rather than the words: “Where Can I Turn for Peace?”, “Each Life That Touches Ours for Good”, “Consider the Lilies”, “How Great Thou Art”, and, when grandchildren are singing, “I Am a Child of God” or “Families Can Be Together Forever”.

One practical note about hymn numbers. Wards are moving to the new hymnbook in stages, and the numbering is not the same as the 1985 book, so check the number in the book your ward is actually using before you print it. If you are not certain, print the title alone. The chorister will announce the number.

A broader list of hymns and songs, with first lines so you can recognize them without listening to all of them, is on the funeral hymns page.

The life sketch and the talks

The life sketch is the part families worry about most, and it is the most forgiving. It is not a eulogy in the theatrical sense. It is someone standing up and telling the room the facts of a life in the order they happened, with two or three stories in the middle.

Eight minutes is the outside limit. If two people want to speak about her life, give one the childhood and the marriage and the other the later years, and tell them both the limit out loud.

If writing it from a blank page is the wall you have hit, the how to write a eulogy page has a structure that works when you are grieving, and there are full examples on the eulogy examples page. For the printed obituary rather than the spoken sketch, use the obituary examples.

Family prayer, the grave dedication and the luncheon

Three things happen around the edges of the service that visitors often do not know about, and that the program should mention so nobody is left standing in a hallway wondering where everyone went.

The family prayer

Shortly before the service, the family gathers privately, usually in a side room, and one person offers a prayer. The casket is closed at the end of it. This is often the hardest ten minutes of the day and the one people are most grateful for afterward. Print the time on the program if the family is large enough that people need telling.

The dedication of the grave

At the cemetery, after the casket has been placed, a Melchizedek Priesthood holder offers a dedicatory prayer over the grave. It is short, it is usually given by a son or a son-in-law, and the name is printed on the program. If the family would rather have a simple graveside prayer instead, that is an accepted alternative and no one will remark on it.

The luncheon

The Relief Society will feed everyone, usually in the cultural hall, and they will not need to be asked twice. What they do need is a rough headcount and the answer to one question: does the family want to eat before going to the cemetery, or after? Print the answer on the back panel.

Printing, quantity and the last two days

A four-panel program on a heavier text-weight paper folds cleanly and holds a photograph well. Print more than the chapel seats, because the overflow and the cultural hall fill up at a well-attended funeral and people take a copy home for a relative who could not travel.

If nobody in the family wants to fight with columns and folds this week, Reposa will build the program from your answers, keep the dates and names consistent across the obituary and the prayer cards, and give you a print-ready PDF. The plain layouts on the funeral program templates page are the ones that suit a chapel service best.