Grief Study Questions
1. Grief is an emotional response to loss. Has there been a time in your life when you have been aware of grief? What did it look like for you?
2. Grief impacts people in a lot of different ways (Physical, Emotional, Psychological, Cognitive, Behavioural, Spirituality/philosophical, Social) share some of the times and ways you have seen grief impact people in different ways.
3. If grief is cumulative (if I have a loss and then another loss), what can we do to ensure we are doing the work of attending to our grief rather than letting it build up.
It is important to be able to sit with people in their grief because they may feel that if you can sit with them through their pain then perhaps, they can too. How is simply being present to people helpful?
4.Here are some tips for supporting someone in grief:
5. Christmas time can be a hard time for people who have experienced loss. Andrew Somerville said, “I don’t want to ask them about it because it will make them sad. The truth is, they are already sad”. What can we do to be more aware and supportive for people at this time?
6. Do we believe in the “God beyond the walls of the church”? Do we believe that God is there, in situations, before we get there and will still be there at work long after we leave? How might we travel through our days looking for ways to partner with God in what he is doing? Heather Somerville calls this “keeping God company”.
Read Psalm 40:1-3
Pray for each other and for those you know who are deep in grief. Pray that they will feel God lift them from the depths and they will feel the firm foundation under their feet and that a song of praise will emerge from them, gradually, eventually.
2. Grief impacts people in a lot of different ways (Physical, Emotional, Psychological, Cognitive, Behavioural, Spirituality/philosophical, Social) share some of the times and ways you have seen grief impact people in different ways.
3. If grief is cumulative (if I have a loss and then another loss), what can we do to ensure we are doing the work of attending to our grief rather than letting it build up.
It is important to be able to sit with people in their grief because they may feel that if you can sit with them through their pain then perhaps, they can too. How is simply being present to people helpful?
4.Here are some tips for supporting someone in grief:
- Create connections.
- Actively Listen
- Ask open questions (how, what, why. – be interested)
- Reflect back what you are hearing, observing, sensing.
- Help name emotions.
- Normalise & validate the feelings.
- Offer accurate empathy – eg can mirror voice, tone, body position
- Honour the story
- Acknowledge what the other is going through – you do not need to agree!
- Respectfully accept what the other is experiencing.
- Silence can be powerful.
- Avoid assumptions.
- Ask what the other needs.
- Do not try to fix, distract or change the other’s feelings.
- Do not minimise.
- Avoid platitudes.
- Do not try to cheer them up.
- Avoid sharing your own story.
- Avoid giving advice.
- Avoid judgments.
5. Christmas time can be a hard time for people who have experienced loss. Andrew Somerville said, “I don’t want to ask them about it because it will make them sad. The truth is, they are already sad”. What can we do to be more aware and supportive for people at this time?
6. Do we believe in the “God beyond the walls of the church”? Do we believe that God is there, in situations, before we get there and will still be there at work long after we leave? How might we travel through our days looking for ways to partner with God in what he is doing? Heather Somerville calls this “keeping God company”.
Read Psalm 40:1-3
Pray for each other and for those you know who are deep in grief. Pray that they will feel God lift them from the depths and they will feel the firm foundation under their feet and that a song of praise will emerge from them, gradually, eventually.
Further thinking:
Read 1 Thes. 4:13-14 - We do not have "no hope". What difference does hope in eternity make?
Sometimes our theology (our understanding of God) is insufficient to deal with all our concerns or understandings. Rather than abandon our faith in hard times, what can we do to grow our faith?
Reflecting on Job and the way his friends tried to comfort him, and the way the disciples tried to convince Jesus not to go to Jerusalem, they were all trying to appease their own anxiety. How might we put our own needs aside to comfort those around us? How might we be people who can sit in the rumble of pain because we have a hope in Jesus?
There are three times in Scripture that Jesus wept (John 11:35; Luke 19:41; Hebrews 5:7-9)How did Jesus respond when his friend Lazarus died? What does this say about how to process grief?
Passages to reflect on: Lamentations 3:19-24, Psalm 22, Rom 12:15.
Read 1 Thes. 4:13-14 - We do not have "no hope". What difference does hope in eternity make?
Sometimes our theology (our understanding of God) is insufficient to deal with all our concerns or understandings. Rather than abandon our faith in hard times, what can we do to grow our faith?
Reflecting on Job and the way his friends tried to comfort him, and the way the disciples tried to convince Jesus not to go to Jerusalem, they were all trying to appease their own anxiety. How might we put our own needs aside to comfort those around us? How might we be people who can sit in the rumble of pain because we have a hope in Jesus?
There are three times in Scripture that Jesus wept (John 11:35; Luke 19:41; Hebrews 5:7-9)How did Jesus respond when his friend Lazarus died? What does this say about how to process grief?
Passages to reflect on: Lamentations 3:19-24, Psalm 22, Rom 12:15.