What’s a Novembering Service?

Every November since we launched RiverLife in 2014, we set aside a weekend for a unique 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 is a little more somber and slower, and our worship songs are a bit quieter and more reflective. The staff and leaders even dress in black, as you would at a funeral.

During the service, we read lament psalms together, we light candles in memory of loved ones, and we share the names the stories of friends and family whom we have lost. There’s a lot of crying and hugging but also a lot of hope and healing.

Five Reasons We Do Novembering

1. The Holidays Can Be Hard

If you’ve lost someone you love, the holidays can be a difficult time. And this year, because of COVID, many will be celebrating Thanksgiving or Christmas without a family member or dear friend for the first time.

We hope that Novembering can help people enter the holiday season with a little more hope in Christ, comfort in one another, and healthy grieving skills.

2. Grieving Well is Healing

Grief is a complex, painful emotion which we all experience differently. But one thing is true—most of us don’t know how to grieve well.

We know dozens of unhealthy ways to grieve, like burying our emotions, overworking, or self-medicating with food or alcohol.

Novembering attempts to lead people in emotionally healthy, biblical models of grief.

3. Healing Happens Together

Western culture tends to grieve privately, but much of the world (including the ancient world) is communal and grieves corporately.

There is healing that happens when we grieve together. That’s why funerals, wakes, and memorials are so vital for the grieving process.

4. The Church Should Model Lament

The bible is full of lament—people pouring out their emotions of deep sorrow, grief, or remorse. One-third of all psalms are individual and corporate laments.

After thousands of years, we still have plenty of reasons to lament, but we don’t do it nearly enough, especially in the Church. Novembering is our intentional effort to give time and space to pour out our hearts to God and one another.

5. COVID Has Been Brutal

With over 750,000 COVID-related deaths in the U.S. alone, death has impacted nearly every one of us. Some months it has felt like death has been our constant companion.

Additionally, we have all experienced so many other losses over the past two years—jobs, community, milestones, independence, safety, and so much more.

Every person is experiencing grief in some form. Novembering is here to help them grieve well and bring healing within community.

A Novembering Benediction

There’s one more reason we do a Novembering service—because grief and comfort are fundamental to our sanctifying relationship with Christ. The Apostle Paul describes it beautifully 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.