This practical handbook is designed to show you how to understand the meaning and purpose of the funeral and how to preach sensitive, healing funeral sermons.

After many years as a chaplain who works with dying and mourning people, Kent D. Richmond offers a theological framework for the funeral and sensitively explains the psychological dynamics of each funeral setting.

A Time to Die offers a wealth of information on building funeral sermons. More than half the book contains sample sermons for many different types of funerals, including funerals for a suicide, a child, a young parent, a person with a handicapping condition, and the "unchurched."

The handbook also includes much additional sermon-enrichment material: annotations on Bible passages, appropriate commentaries, and helpful illustrations from other books.

"ATime to Die is exactly the book I wish I could have had when I was a young pastor, utterly unprepared to deal with death or grief, the mortician, the grave, and, least of all, the sermons I had to preach at funeral services. I will earnestly recommend this book to my students."