This year, on Sunday, November 2, we will set aside a weekend for a unique worship experience called a Novembering Service. It’s a time to honor and remember loved ones we have lost—parents, grandparents, spouses, children (those born to us and those never born), aunties, uncles, cousins, and friends.

The service will be a little more somber and slower, and our worship songs will be a bit quieter and more reflective.

During the service, we will read lament psalms together, hear from one another, and share the names the stories of friends and family whom we have lost. Together we will find hope in the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and remember His death on the cross during a time of communion.

Why are we doing this? At Lakeview we strive to be emotionally healthy disciples of Jesus. A large part of our discipleship is learning that grieving well means we heal well. Healing often happens together as we center ourselves around the person and work of Jesus and the hope He offers in the midst of our grief and sorrow.

Additionally, the Bible is full of laments, many of the Psalms are laments and there is even a book in the Bible called Lamentations. Grieving and lamenting is Biblical and should be incorporated into our worship as we seek to collectively find space to pour out our emotions, sharing them with God and others. 

The apostle Paul also reminds us in 2 Corinthians 1:3-7: 

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.