I remember that it was a about fifteen years ago, that it was a Sunday, and we were in that short period of time between Sunday School and the 11:00 service when she told us. Her name was Edith Woods, a woman in her seventies, and on that particular Sunday, she was characteristically poised and elegant.
Larry, the Senior Pastor and I were standing just inside the church office, by the mailboxes. She was wearing a silver broach and a yellow sweater when she told us that her cancer had returned, she said “I want you to know that I am doing just fine and I do not need anything, but I wanted you to know.”
Adam Hamilton, author and founding pastor of the 20,000 member United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas offers 
Sunday night, I was answering questions posed to me by members of our Youth Group when I was asked this question: “Why are we having a sermon series on death anyway?” It is a good and fair question that I have been waiting for someone to ask me. Here is why:
A little over twenty years ago, as I was preparing for my own ordination, I read somewhere that there are essentially five milestones in the Christian life. Some of us experience all of them, while others only experience a few. These milestones are birth, baptism, confirmation, marriage, and death.
Remember that time in January, 2016 when we cancelled worship because of a blizzard and I recorded a sermon on Christian unity and put it on YouTube? Me either! At any rate, here it is. If you look carefully, you can see that I am doing everything in my power to avoid moving because the chair I was sitting in was so squeaky. 
What follows are the words to a hymn I wrote years ago for a Virginia Conference United Methodist devotional guide called “A Summer Read.” We used it in worship on April 10, 2016 as part of our
Ora Et Labora 