ABSTRACT
Several people in our congregation had suffered serious loss during the previous year. A teenage boy committed suicide; a dearly loved grandfather died slowly of cancer; two couples divorced; a man was crippled in an accident. As the minister of counseling, I felt these situations called for something more than one-on-one pastoral care, so I designed the service I am describing here. If this ceremony were held in a non-Christian setting, such as a synagogue, the references to Christ would of course be omitted.
