Skip to main content

Sean Taylor Funeral

Today, a three hour funeral was held for Sean Taylor. There were several emotional moments throughout the service as there were numerous tributes from family, friends, and teammates all bringing their unique perspecive to honor Sean.

I had previously heard that Sean Taylor grew up Seventh-day Adventist and that was definitely the case. Two Adventist pastors took part in the service including the homily by Pastor David L. Peay, Sr. who is the pastor of the Tabernacle Seventh-day Adventist Church (The church choir also sang two songs). Sean attended the church this summer and raised his hand during an appeal. Pastor Peay also spent several hours with him a month ago talking about a variety of issues. He avoided the temptation to give a study on the Adventist perspective on the state of the dead but he did reference a brief quote from the "servant of the Lord."

I must admit that they were a few cringe-inducing moments during the homily, including the pastor wondering if Sean died because they were many people in his family who knew the truth but weren't living it out. This coming after a long discourse on seeing many people come to church for a viewing who don't come to church otherwise and wondering why it took Sean's death to get them there. He asked, "Isn't Jesus' death enough?" I understand that there were many people in attendance and watching who aren't actively practicing faith but I wonder how appropriate it is to go on the evangelistic offense at a time like this. Jesse Jackson also somehow found his way to the funeral and seized the opportunity to advance his agenda.

Perhaps I'll share some insights I've learned about the grieving process and what I've found to be helpful and unhelpful over the next few days.

The Redskins have a short week as they play on Thursday night versus the Bears. After four straight losses and dealing with this death, a win sure would lift our spirits. I'm not counting on it though and at the end of the day, I guess it's really not all that important in the larger scheme of things.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Advent Struggle -- Part 2

There's been a lot of excellent discussion on the previous post. I've stayed out of it for the most part to let everyone else let their thoughts be known. I thought I would write another post explaining my thoughts in a little more detail. There has been some discussion over this issue of style versus theology (At least at the very beginning). I think I might have used that terminology and I want to clarify that I reject the false dichotomy of style VERSUS theology because our style and methodologies REVEAL our theology. The methods we use to present a message tends to reveal as much about the message as the message itself. In no way do I believe that all young adults want praise music, full band, nice lyric graphics projected, etc. However, I think that the 90% (no real data just a guesstimate) of Adventist churches who think of that worship style as being from the devil reveals one of the major issues at the heart of the crisis -- The Adventist response to culture. The tradit...
29 comments
Read more

The Advent Struggle

I've been trying to write this for literally a month but haven't been able to. Not sure why but it just hasn't flowed. So, here's the attempt: On a regular basis, I hear from or about friends who have stopped going to church. There are numerous reasons why they are leaving but one common thread seems to be a feeling that church has become meaningless. They've felt this for a long time but kept going because they hoped it would get better or just because they'd feel guilty if they didn't. But, they aren't going to play the game anymore. The young adult exodus out of the church isn't news to really anyone but there's something important that I think will make this crisis be more severe. When you examine recent Adventist history, there have been several crises of faith including EGW and Inspiration, Desmond Ford, and Creation/Science (to a small degree). What are the characteristics of all of them? 1. They are based on a doctrinal position and are v...
35 comments
Read more

Life of a Pastor

It was shaping up to be a long, draining Sabbath an Adventist pastor experiences quite often. I got up around 7am and didn't finish the day until 10pm (I did get a chance to sneak a nap in so that helped). Although too long, it provided a lot of thought-provoking experiences that made it manageable. The week turned out to be filled with good news. On Monday, a member had a baby so that was exciting. Another member had back surgery on Tuesday that went well. Wednesday, one of our members' sons was had a very rare and serious surgery. It literally took all day but by late afternoon we got the great news that everything had gone well. So, we were coming to church in a celebrative mood. Then, before Sabbath School started, a mother and daughter-in-law were crying and hugging each other because another daughter-in-law was given bad news about her cancer. The doctors have told her she has two months to live. This actual is quite typical in church. You have people coming full of prais...
3 comments
Read more