While grief has always been a part of life, it is no less intense for those going through it. Effective grief ministry within a church can be challenging because the grieving process goes far beyond the week surrounding a funeral.

Many grieving people are surrounded by attention from family, friends and their church during the intense days following the death of a friend or loved one. But it is after the funeral, when everyone else has returned to a more normal lifestyle, that the really hard work of grief recovery begins. It can take months, even years to fully grieve the loss of someone close, creating a huge challenge for pastors and counselors.

Thousands of churches across the US, Canada and in over 10 other countries have formed GriefShare ministries to meet this important need.

GriefShare is a program designed to equip your church to conduct ongoing ministry to people grieving the loss of a family member or friend. The GriefShare program features emphasis on a biblical approach to grief recovery and the return to emotional health. GriefShare emphasizes that real healing from the intense emotions of grieving and loss must begin with a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

The GriefShare program is built around these crucial components:

• Training of church grief recovery leaders and facilitators
• Video and print teaching materials addressing grief ministry in a biblical context
• Support group strategies to facilitate an ongoing ministry to grieving people

The program is designed to be easy to implement, easy to use. GriefShare is structured as a weekly two-hour session that combines teaching and small group discussion. Materials can be used by as few as five people meeting in the church building.

The GriefShare program solves a number of problems inherent in conducting a successful grief recovery ministry:

It’s often difficult to find a teacher knowledgeable in the areas of grief recovery. Pastors and staff are likely to be too busy to be able to invest the necessary time to prepare teaching on a weekly basis, and lay teachers with this expertise are rare. Great care must be taken in blending biblical instruction with practical guidance to create a program that sensitively meets the needs of people who come to the church for help.

GriefShare solves this problem by bringing together some of the foremost experts on grief issues in a series of video seminars that take program participants through a carefully designed curriculum addressing their emotional, spiritual and practical needs. These video programs, averaging 35 minutes in length, combine solid teaching with interviews, dramatizations and case studies to produce an interesting and compelling television program.

The videos are supported by an interactive workbook for each program participant.

For a grief recovery ministry to be effective, it must be an ongoing program. There must be a place where a grieving person can get help right away when he or she turns to the church. Grieving people then need sustained support and guidance over a period of months as they work through the issues, pain and pressures surrounding them.

The weekly GriefShare groups are designed to become an oasis for these people, a place where they can gain knowledge during the teaching time and where they can share their feelings with others who are also experiencing grief and loss.

Recruiting and maintaining a qualified leadership team is one of the major challenges of an effective grief recovery ministry. It is especially difficult to find a person qualified to teach on the myriad of issues that intersect to form an effective grief ministry.

GriefShare solves this problem by providing the teaching segments on video. These high quality video seminars on DVD feature experts with credibility and experience in ministry to people grieving the death of a loved one.

Each church supplies facilitators, people with a burden for ministry in this area. It is typically much easier to recruit qualified facilitators if teaching is not part of the job requirement. As the program matures in a church, program participants who exhibit substantial growth and healing will be able to assume facilitator roles, creating a self-perpetuating ministry.

GriefShare provides each church with an extensive Leader’s Guide, containing detailed information on how to establish a grief ministry, recruit leadership, promote the ministry and effectively coordinate the logistics of an ongoing ministry.

GriefShare also provides each church with a special leader-equipping video designed to be used to train group facilitators and other local leadership.

Each year, GriefShare conducts multiple regional training conferences to provide an intensive training experience to supplement the training supplied with the GriefShare curriculum.

GriefShare also maintains an extensive online website for leaders, providing a rich resource of leadership and leader-equipping tools.

GriefShare has produced a complete package of promotional materials for churches to use in publicizing the program in their communities.

GriefShare is a ministry of Church Initiative, a church-equipping ministry based in Wake Forest, North Carolina. Church Initiative is a nondenominational, nonprofit, tax-exempt ministry organization. In addition to GriefShare, Church Initiative offers:

• DivorceCare, divorce recovery support groups
• Before You Divorce, a marriage crisis counseling tool
• DivorceCare for Kids, a divorce recovery program for children
• Chance to Change, gambling addiction recovery groups
• Facing Forever, an evangelism and discipleship resource

Church Initiative
PO Box 1739
Wake Forest, NC 27588
800-395-5755
919-562-2112

www.churchinitiative.org