A UCG Funeral Story

The following  was too important to leave isolated in the comments section. 

From the comments section of the Did WCG Ministers Refuse Funerals for Stillborn Children?

 

My Mother's Funeral

As sad as this story is, I have an equally mind-boggling account of COG cruelty and absurdity.

After 20 years out of WCG, my wife and I joined a small UCG congregation in a foreign country in 2009 where we had been doing church-raising.

From my former WCG responsibilities and the fact that I had been a Wesleyan pastor and missionary in the interim, I rose quickly to song-leading and sermonettes within the first year. The regional pastor's favor shown to me didn't please the local elder.

When my 82-year-old alzheimers mother, who we had taken care of for six years, died in 2010, I informed the local elder that one of the local deacons who had visited my mother and I would perform the funeral ceremonies as per my mother's long-time wishes. This was perfectly in keeping with the UCG Ministerial manual.

With this the local elder saw his chance to remove the 'thorn' from his flesh. In the midst of our handling the grief, he concocted a desperate story about my disrespecting his authority to the regional pastor.

Even though half of the church saw and heard us discussing my plans at the side of my mother's casket at the funeral home, he told the pastor that I had ignored him and I don't know what else.

Two days later, I heard there was a problem and I called the pastor to find out what. He had talked to the elder and was ticked saying that I had usurped the UCG government and that he the pastor should be handling the funeral.

When I had calmly explained the situation to him, he said that neither the deacon, nor the other leaders, nor the brethren would be able to participate in the funeral of my mother.

The pastor told me, directly in front of where my mother was laying, that now that I had no choice I should let him do the service. I controlled myself and told him that what he was doing was extremely disrespectful and that he had better leave the room as soon as possible.

When I stood he saw my face and left quickly and somewhat shaken. But as he was exiting the door, he told me he would not be able to attend the funeral service since he had 'business' back in his province the next day.

The brethren said that he came to services and told the leaders not to participate in the funeral, but decided to allow the people to attend if they wished.

-------
There is much more and much worse which transpired over the next few days, weeks and months, as my family performed the services and buried my mother, unsupported by the shell-shocked brethren, and 'under a cloud' of doubled grief, and then as I appealed my way up the wicked chain of UCG command.

I would love to tell you the names, locales, and details of this unprecedented debacle, but my principles will not permit retribution on such sad and depraved COG hirelings.

Fortunately, I was already emotionally prepared, because of the long-time nature of dealing with an alzheimers parent, and because of the intensely spiritual parting with my dear mother after such a close shared experience.

But when I look back at what they did, it is like a surreal dream without parallel. I actually feel worse for them than I did for myself.

The pastor by the way lost his regional position and all those wonderful tithes when he jumped the UCG ship for COGWA and wound up with just part of his home congregation, most of whom he already has to support financially. I think he may have lost his UCG retirement program also.

As my mother of happy memory often reminded me, ‘What goes around, comes around.’