Pastoral Care for Grief: What Ministers Often Get Wrong

Ministry of Presence: How to Provide Pastoral Care for Grief

By Michael Mooney, Exec. Elder

A grieving person does not always need a minister who knows what to say. Sometimes they need a minister who knows that nothing needs to be said yet. That can be uncomfortable for pastors because ministry trains us to preach, teach, pray and respond. We are accustomed to entering a problem with something useful to offer. Grief, however, has a way of exposing the limits of words.

Job’s three friends understood this better at first than they did later. When Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite saw the depth of Job’s suffering, they sat with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights without speaking because “they saw that his suffering was very great” (Job 2:13). It may have been the best pastoral care they gave him. Their problems began when silence gave way to explanation.

Consider Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus. He knew Lazarus would live again. He knew exactly what He was about to do. Yet when He encountered Mary, Martha, and the mourners, Jesus did not treat their sorrow as a theological misunderstanding requiring immediate correction. “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). The shortest verse in the Bible may contain one of its longest lessons in pastoral care.

These two scenes give ministers an important starting point. Job’s friends show us that presence can sometimes be wiser than explanation. Jesus shows us that certain resurrection hope does not require the denial of present sorrow, even though He knew He would raise Lazarus from the dead shortly thereafter. Good pastoral care begins by resisting the urge to rush grief toward an answer before we have first entered it with the person who is suffering.

Grief Is Not a Problem to Solve

Grief is the human response to significant loss. Bereavement after death is its most obvious form, but people may also grieve after divorce, disability, serious illness, lost relationships, displacement, or other life-changing losses. Grief can affect emotion, thought, sleep, appetite, concentration, relationships, spiritual life, and even a person’s sense of identity. No two people experience it in exactly the same way or on exactly the same timetable.

This creates the first pastoral danger: assuming that good ministry should move someone through grief quickly. Christian hope certainly changes how believers understand death, but hope does not make sorrow imaginary. Paul does not tell Christians that they should not grieve. He tells them not to grieve “as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). There is an important difference between grief without hope and hope without grief. Scripture gives us the first distinction, but never requires the second.

That means a minister should resist the temptation to measure someone’s faith by how quickly tears disappear. Tears are not necessarily evidence that resurrection hope has failed. Jesus knew exactly where Lazarus was going and still wept beside the grave. If perfect knowledge of resurrection did not prevent Christ from entering human sorrow, pastors should be cautious about expecting a grieving believer to hurry past it.

What Scripture Gives the Grieving

The Bible does not approach grief with one emotional tone. Scripture contains lament, questions, silence, anguish, remembrance, hope, worship, and confidence in God. The Psalms demonstrate that faith can speak honestly from within suffering rather than pretending suffering has already been resolved. Psalm 22 begins with abandonment and anguish, while other laments ask difficult questions that many grieving Christians are afraid to say aloud.

Several biblical themes are especially important in pastoral care:

• Jesus enters human sorrow. Christ weeps with those mourning Lazarus even though He knows resurrection is coming (John 11:32-36).
• Lament belongs inside faith. The Psalms give believers language for sorrow, confusion, fear, and longing without requiring them to disguise those emotions before God (Psalm 22; Psalm 42; Psalm 88).
• God draws near to the brokenhearted. Scripture does not portray suffering as a place from which God automatically withdraws (Psalm 34:18).
• Christ has defeated death. Christian comfort ultimately rests on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, not on sentimental reassurance (1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 54-57).
• Believers grieve with hope. The resurrection gives Christians a future beyond the grave without requiring them to pretend that present separation does not hurt (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).

This theological balance matters. A pastor who offers grief without resurrection has withheld Christian hope. A pastor who announces resurrection in a way that leaves no room for grief has ignored how Scripture itself treats sorrow. The gospel does not require us to choose between tears and hope. At the tomb of Lazarus, Christ gave us both, even though He knew He would raise Lazarus from the dead shortly thereafter.

The Ministry of Presence Comes Before the Ministry of Explanation

One of the most useful things a minister can offer is simply presence. Research involving bereaved families has found that chaplains were valued for comfort, practical help, spiritual support, and even the reassurance created simply by knowing someone was available.[1] Pastoral-care research has also examined the value of empathy and silence, particularly when words cannot adequately enter another person’s experience.[2] That agrees remarkably well with what many ministers eventually learn by experience: presence can communicate something that explanations cannot.

There is a pastoral instinct to fill silence because silence can feel like failure. We may search for a verse, an explanation, or a sentence strong enough to make the moment better. Sometimes there is no such sentence. Silence does not necessarily mean the minister has nothing to offer. Sometimes it means the minister has enough wisdom not to compete with grief for control of the room.

1. Be Present

Show up without assuming that your presence must produce an immediate result. Visit the family, attend the funeral or visitation, sit with the grieving person, and make yourself available when appropriate. Presence says, “You do not have to carry this moment alone.” It also gives the minister time to understand the person before deciding what kind of help is actually needed.

2. Listen Before You Interpret

Grieving people may speak about sadness, anger, guilt, relief, confusion, regret, fear, or even anger toward God. Do not assume that every painful statement requires theological correction in the moment it is spoken. Listening first helps the minister understand what the person is actually saying rather than responding to what we expected them to say. Sometimes a person needs permission to say aloud what they have been afraid a Christian is not supposed to feel.

Questions can be more helpful than speeches. A pastor might ask, “What has been hardest about this week?” or “What do you find yourself thinking about most?” Those questions allow the grieving person to identify the burden rather than forcing the minister’s interpretation onto it. Pastoral care begins to weaken when the minister becomes more interested in providing an answer than understanding the question.

3. Pray Honestly

Prayer should acknowledge what has actually happened. It is not necessary to make every prayer sound victorious before the person has finished crying. We can thank God for His presence, ask for strength, confess our dependence on Him, remember the deceased appropriately, and affirm Christian hope. Biblical lament teaches us that reverence and emotional honesty are not enemies.

A grieving Christian does not need the pastor to convince God that everything is fine. God already knows it is not. The minister can therefore pray with confidence without pretending that death is less terrible than Scripture portrays it. Death is called an enemy in 1 Corinthians 15:26, even though it is an enemy Christ will finally destroy.

4. Use Scripture With Discernment

Scripture is central to Christian pastoral care, but timing matters. A true verse can still be used carelessly. Romans 8:28, for example, teaches a glorious truth about God’s providential work, but quoting it immediately after devastating news can sound more like an attempt to close the conversation than to enter someone’s suffering. The problem is not the verse. The problem is treating Scripture as though its purpose were to make painful emotions disappear on command.

Choose passages that meet the person where they are while directing them toward God. Psalms of lament can give language to sorrow. John 11 shows Christ entering grief. First Thessalonians 4 grounds hope in resurrection. First Corinthians 15 places death beneath the final victory of Christ. Scripture should not merely decorate pastoral care. It should tell the truth about both sorrow and hope.

5. Help With What Grief Makes Hard

Death does not arrive alone. Families may suddenly face funeral arrangements, meals, transportation, paperwork, communication with relatives, care for children, financial questions, and dozens of decisions while their ability to concentrate is diminished. Pastoral care therefore includes practical ministry as well as conversation. Christianity Today’s long-standing guidance for pastors likewise emphasizes helping grieving families with practical details surrounding death and funeral arrangements.[3]

The minister does not need to personally perform every task. In fact, trying to do so can prevent the church from functioning as the body of Christ. A congregation can organize practical help through:

• meals,
• transportation,
• child care,
• funeral or visitation assistance,
• communication with church members,
• household errands, and
• companionship after the funeral.

The key is usefulness rather than activity. Grieving families do not need twenty people independently asking, “Is there anything I can do?” when one person could coordinate five useful things. Compassion becomes stronger when it acquires some organization.

6. Remember That Grief Outlives the Funeral

Churches are often excellent during the first week. Food arrives, flowers appear, people call, the funeral takes place, and the family is surrounded by attention. Then everyone else returns to normal. The grieving person returns to a house in which normal may no longer exist.

Pastoral care should therefore extend beyond the funeral. Follow up several weeks later and again in the months that follow. Remember significant dates when appropriate, including the anniversary of the death, birthdays, and major holidays. Do not assume that renewed sadness around these dates means the person is “going backward.” Grief often returns with reminders because love has a memory.

Pastoral Care Has Limits

A minister should not confuse pastoral availability with clinical competence. Most bereavement is a normal human response to loss and does not constitute a mental disorder. However, the American Psychiatric Association recognizes prolonged grief disorder when severe and persistent grief reactions cause clinically significant distress or impairment and meet specific diagnostic criteria.[4] Diagnosis belongs to qualified mental-health professionals, not to pastors reading a checklist after Sunday service.

Referral does not mean pastoral care has failed. Sometimes responsible pastoral care means recognizing that another kind of care is also needed. The minister can remain spiritually present while encouraging professional assessment, counseling, medical attention, emergency intervention, or other specialized support. A pastor does not become less pastoral by recognizing the boundary of pastoral competence.

Professional help should be considered when grief is accompanied by serious concerns such as:

• persistent inability to function in ordinary life,
• suicidal thoughts or statements,
• danger to self or others,
• severe substance misuse,
• persistent traumatic symptoms,
• severe depression or other significant mental-health symptoms, or
• grief that remains intensely disabling well beyond expected cultural, social, and religious patterns.

The American Psychiatric Association notes that prolonged grief disorder involves persistent, disabling grief rather than simply grief that lasts a long time.[4] That distinction is important. A calendar does not diagnose a person. Ministers should neither pathologize ordinary sorrow nor ignore serious suffering because they are afraid that referral somehow competes with faith.

The Church Should Still Be There When Everyone Else Goes Home

Grief ministry should never rest entirely on one pastor. The New Testament describes believers bearing one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), which makes care for grieving people part of congregational life. Research concerning Christian congregations and end-of-life care has likewise identified important roles for churches in spiritual preparation, practical support, ritual, reconciliation, and continued outreach to bereaved members.[5] The church has something a professional appointment cannot completely reproduce: an ongoing community in which the grieving person still belongs.

Churches can strengthen grief care through several deliberate practices:

• Preaching and teaching: Teach honestly about death, lament, resurrection, suffering, and Christian hope before members encounter these realities in crisis.
• Prepared care teams: Train trusted members to provide meals, visits, practical assistance, prayer, and appropriate follow-up.
• Grief support: Offer or recommend responsible grief-support groups when appropriate.
• Referral relationships: Know qualified Christian counselors, mental-health professionals, hospice services, and community resources before they are urgently needed.
• Long-term remembrance: Build systems that help the church remember grieving families after the funeral has disappeared from everyone’s calendar.

This is one place where church organization can become an expression of love. A reminder on a pastoral calendar may not look particularly spiritual. But when it prompts a call to a widow six months after everyone else stopped calling, organization has become compassion with a memory.

Do Not Rush People Toward the Resurrection

The resurrection is not a way around grief. It is God’s answer to death itself. Christian ministers therefore have no reason to minimize death in order to defend Christian hope. We can call death an enemy because Scripture does, and we can proclaim Christ’s victory because Scripture does that too.

That brings us back to Jesus standing outside Lazarus’s tomb. He did not weep because He had forgotten what He was about to do. He wept while knowing resurrection was coming. Perhaps one of the clearest marks of Christian pastoral care is learning to do the same: stand honestly inside present sorrow while refusing to surrender future hope.

The grieving person does not need us to choose between those two truths. Neither should the minister. There is a time to sit quietly beside the tomb, and there is a time to proclaim that the tomb will not have the final word. Wisdom is knowing which moment you are standing in.

Call to Action

Christian ministry requires more than knowing what to preach when life is orderly. It requires learning how to remain faithful when people are hurting and easy answers will not do. The National Association of Christian Ministers equips and encourages ministers who desire to serve Christ with biblical conviction, practical wisdom, and genuine pastoral care.

References

[1] Broccolo, G. T., & VandeCreek, L. (2004). How are health care chaplains helpful to bereaved family members? Telephone survey results. Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling, 58(1-2), 31-39. PubMed.

[2] Capretto, P. (2015). Empathy and silence in pastoral care for traumatic grief and loss. Journal of Religion and Health, 54(1), 339-357. PubMed.

[3] Walker, P. L. (1987). Pastoral care for grieving families. Christianity Today. Christianity Today.

[4] American Psychiatric Association. (2025). Prolonged grief disorder. American Psychiatric Association.

[5] Braun, K. L., & Zir, A. (2001). Roles for the church in improving end-of-life care: Perceptions of Christian clergy and laity. Death Studies, 25(8), 685-704. PubMed.

Crossway Bibles. (2016). ESV Bible. Crossway. John 11:32-36; Psalm 22; Psalm 34:18; Psalm 42; Psalm 88; 1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 54-57; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Galatians 6:2.