EP 45: Natural Burial Update with Jennifer Dill

These are lives, these are believers in Christ, These are

souls that are now, you know, to be absent from the bodies, to be

present with the Lord. All that.

It's just so visceral, even on this natural land.

But the idea that is that in two years, in five years, in 10

years, you know, Lord willing, whatever, you would just be

walking through a field and you would just see.

You would see these stones and just the idea and the

anticipation of the beauty of the dead in crash rising one

day. Hello, friends.

Well, welcome back to the Grace Church Members Podcast here in

the studio with our producer, Whitney, How are you doing?

Good. How are you, Scott?

Good to see you again. And our special guest today is

Miss Jennifer Dill. And we are talking about natural

burial and getting an update as we start the year on a good

number of changes that have happened since the last time we

talked to you about it. So, Jennifer, thanks for being

here. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, it's good to be here. Well, you know, part of this is

personal for me. I got a chance to be a part of

the natural burial at the end of last year.

And when I was out on our natural burial land, I just

realized how much things have changed.

And we just want to give people an update recognizing that some

folks may not even realize why we have this ministry, the scope

and extent of it, and really the roles, key roles that volunteers

play. And I know you get to work with

a lot of great people. So you're the perfect person to

have in to talk us through this. So let's just start at the

beginning, if that's OK. Is that all right?

So why? What is natural burial and why

are we doing it? Sure.

So natural burial, how we see it at Grace is the logistics.

It's being buried and it's snow embalming.

For us, that's that's what makes it natural.

There are other places across the US that talk about green

barrels, etcetera, but for us it's no embalming, no vault

coffin and it's just a more simple alternative.

It's not the only way that we say someone can be buried at

Grace Church, but it is a way. And that's an important thing

for people to. Hear.

Now, this is not something that we're saying everybody should do

even, but it is a a ministry and a service that we wanted to

provide. Why?

Why was that important? Yeah, so we wanted to make sure

one, that the church should just be a part of every stage of of

life, including death. We look a lot at folks who when

babies are born and you the big milestones.

And we started to see that the church started to not be very

involved in death and the burial process.

And so we wanted to make sure that we continued to be involved

in that process. Yeah, that seemed like an odd

disconnect from the way the church is really involved in

every other area of life. Then maybe just some some

cultural norms it kind of taken over.

And so is a little, is it fair to say it's a little bit of a a

correction, at least in the way that the church had been

thinking and operating? Absolutely.

I would think it's kind of going in a way some of the mainstream

culture that that we have today. You know, it's rare for a church

and church family to be involved in the death and burial process

as much as they have been with what we've seen in natural

burial. Yeah.

Especially a large church. Correct.

But but it's interesting you drive through any part of the

low country South Carolina, you see small town, you see small

church. What are you going to see always

there The. Tombstones and the graveyard on

the back. Yeah, yeah.

So we're kind of going back to some roots here.

Yeah, I remember when we first started all of this, like it was

just, it felt strange, but I was also like, OK, wait.

This is actually a very normal, in fact a very guaranteed part

of life that I haven't really talked about much and I haven't

really thought about much. And I think that that's true for

a lot of people. And then it even has this

sensitivity or taboo of we can't, we can't talk about that,

you know. So I think it's been just cool

for me to get a window into it and just that we're talking

about this as a more normal thing.

And I mean, it helps me not to be afraid of it.

And as believers like, that's certainly the reality for us.

Right. Absolutely.

I mean, I guess it's fair to say that there are some financial

considerations and there are environmental considerations,

but those aren't the main reasons.

The main reasons are the spiritual reasons.

Yes, the financial stewardship, you know, funeral cost can be

very high for a more traditional type of funeral.

So we, we keep our cost at $2500 and that includes, you know, the

service, the burial, the pine box, which is made by volunteers

in our church flowers and we'll get into maybe some of the

details in, in a little bit, but that's what that cost includes.

And then like you said, the environment, you know it since

it eliminates embalming and vaults and grave liners.

You know, those things, even though a lot of people use them,

they are kind of harmful to the environment.

And so natural decomposition is just good conservation that

we've seen as as we've done this so.

Yeah, and certainly I think just the idea of embalming is this

idea of we want to keep the body around and right as believers,

like we're letting go of our earthly bodies 'cause we believe

that we get new heavenly bodies, you know, And so even that idea

is very representative of something that we want to be

true for our faith. That's helpful just to to hear

all that. And for those of you listening,

if you want a little bit more of the why we are doing natural

burial, we did an episode with Matt Kelly in 2022.

I think that's episode 5 if you want to go back and listen to

that. But Jennifer, will you just kind

of recap a little bit for us? Just how did we get here and

into this world of thinking about death and burial and how

to do that well as the church? Sure.

So I believe Matt Kelly, our Harrison Bridge campus pastor

and one of our staff elders had this idea years ago and because

he went to a funeral that was a natural burial of one of his

close family members and was just blown away at how much

involvement that everybody had at the burial and wanted to

potentially bring this idea to Grace Church.

And so over the years, we did some research and kind of just

kept meeting about it and putting together a potential

plan. And then we were able to acquire

some land out in the Piedmont Powdersville area.

So that is where our natural burial land is.

And so he was able to kind of start that process of talking

with Anderson County and getting everything going logistically

there. And then on the care side of

things, we put together some staff and what we thought maybe

a good burial could look like, but we weren't sure until it

happened. And then right when we kind of

had what we thought was somewhat of an OK plan, we did have a

family out in Spartanburg request natural burial.

And so we had to ask, are we ready for this?

And we said, OK, let's, let's do it.

And when was that? That was in 2021.

September of 2021. OK, so we've got a plan now we

have we know there's a need now there's an immediate need and so

we just began to put that plan into action and then make some

you know adjustments along the way.

So tell us a little bit catches thin up on the last really 3 1/2

years. Sure.

How many burials? Maybe some of the changes that

have happened. First of all, how many acres do

we have? We have 12 acres.

OK. So it's a pretty good, really

good plot of land. And so then tell us a little bit

about the last 3 1/2 years since that first?

Burial. Thankfully, we have some

wonderful volunteers who have been able to serve in all sorts

of ways. So now we've kind of gotten a

system put in place as to when somebody is in need of a natural

burial. We are able to work with a local

Funeral Home, Palmetto Mortuary. We work with them as far as like

service planning date and time, and we make sure one of our

caskets, like I said, it is done by volunteer, gets delivered.

Those volunteers deliver the casket to Palmetto Mortuary and

then we make sure that the land is is prepared.

And then we also make sure that our flower team is ready.

So we have ladies from, you know, all over every campus who

are prepared pretty much at any moment to go out and put flowers

together. And I apologize, I said, ladies,

there are a couple of men that love to help with this as well,

so. And tell us a little bit about

land. What does that mean to prepare

the land? Sure.

So it means we have somebody who goes out and uses a tractor to

dig the hole. And I say that that's kind of

been done lately. But we have actually also had

folks, a couple of families who have hand dug their own family

members grave. We've had that done for a older

gentleman, I believe, and then somebody who's quite a bit

younger. And so that was very moving to

just be able to be part of them wanting to hand dig their loved

ones grave. And so it it depends on what the

family would like or requests and then preparing the land,

meaning also just making sure now we do keep it natural.

So there are still, you know, bushes that aren't trimmed.

And we do like for things to kind of grow, like I said,

naturally we do try and make sure that there's a path cut to

the graves and to the area where their loved one is buried.

But then for the most part though, it is, we don't go out

there. There we don't have a

groundskeeper. That's right.

That's part of what makes it natural.

Correct. And so we we ask that nothing

non natural or something that you would have to kind of keep

up with is placed out there because we're we're not out

there 24 seconds. And we really just want to keep

the focus on putting your hope in God and making sure that

that's that's who you're connecting with through this

process. Yes, it's great.

Go absolutely go visit your loved one.

And we want to make sure that we are also connecting ourselves to

Christ right in this moment. And those are some of the

updates that we've been able to do.

I think there's some some signage now, there's some

fencing, there's some gravel. So it's easy to get in and out.

And like I said, there's some paths because part of what's

happened over the last few years is we've had a a number of

burials. How how many burials have we

had? Short.

We've had 30 burials. Wow.

And so you started down the process of identifying some of

the volunteers. What is what is your role in all

of this? And you know what happens when

someone in our church passes away and you get a phone call,

like just kind of walk us through that process as well?

So my role, my role in staff is the care and recovery and

outreach director and then natural burial coordinator.

So I help campuses and families do some of the coordination.

So I will help walk the campus staff through some of those

pieces such as, you know, how to work with the Funeral Home and

what the order of service could look like if they're needs to be

music or not out of the land. Do family members want to help

put the dirt back into the grave after the holes already been

dug? So I help kind of resource the

campus and the family and some of the logistics of natural

burial because it's not something we do every day.

It's something that it's foreign to a lot of people, but yet when

we get there and we start the process, it's not as foreign as

as you think it is. So you're communicating with the

family and the campuses, making those connections, and then what

about the volunteer teams? Sure.

So Angie Wolf on the care and recovery team, she is probably

the volunteer coordinator of the natural burial.

She gets the folks who do the flowers in place.

She makes sure the pine box is going to be delivered.

She makes sure that the hole is going to be dug.

Any other pieces, special pieces of the service that families

need, such as musicians, or if there just needs to be extra

tissues out of the land or extra water bottles?

All those little details someone's thinking through.

So we have, we do have some seating out of the land and we

have guys who helped set up. So Angie Wolf gets those things

together. While we really like to keep the

graveside services small, really around 30 people, we do have

seats, but again, only for about 20 to 30 people because we want

to keep it small and intimate and personable.

A lot of folks have elected to do a graveside service of small

intimate family and friends, but then do a larger service, maybe

at their campus, right? Yeah.

And I think people in a traditional air quotes their

model, sure you might have a, you might have a graveside, you

might have a service followed by a graveside.

So I think people have an image of what that could be like,

except this is a lot more. It just flows.

It's informal, right? It's, I mean, it's natural not

to overuse that, right? It's phrasing, right?

And I guess we should, we should really say our friends at

Palmetto have been amazing. We could not do this process

without them. Absolutely.

But then also that does dictate because it's natural burial,

like we have a little bit of a time frame that we're working

on. Is that right?

Correct. Yes, we ideally we really like

to bury somebody two to five days after someone has died

because there is no embalming process, the body can decompose

pretty quickly. And so we want to make sure we

are able to provide the service within that time frame.

That's really cool. Jennifer and you and I are both

detail people too. And so it is a form of care to

take care of the details with people as well.

And in the midst of grief, you know, nobody just wants to be

planning all those things. And so even just the tissues

that are already there are super meaningful.

And yeah, if you guys are listening and this just feels

weird and unfamiliar, that's OK. This is a little weird.

And we're all, we are very much still learning.

And it's been a process of learning for us.

But I think we'd love to just hear, I think, some stories to

even just to demonstrate like how this has been impactful for

our people, how it has produced fruit.

And then you talked about just some of the families who have

gotten to dig a grave. And I had the opportunity to to

talk to one of those men and he just shared about like the

visceral task of that, like the physical work and the

opportunity to participate actually helped him grieve and

process in that moment. So just what are some of those

other examples of in these 30 burials that we've had, how

that's helped our people? Absolutely.

And I appreciate you saying that.

We are still learning. I mean, so we've had 30 burials

and I do feel like every burial there's a piece that's been

different for each one. My logistics type a brain, I

don't always like that. But then when I get out there to

the service or hear how the service went, it reminds me

like, OK, this is what we're doing as a church.

So and it matters, right? So we mentioned that the, a

tractor or somebody comes out and digs the hole.

Well, when usually when you arrive at the service, you'll

see the, the mountain of dirt, We give the families an option

to put that dirt back into the grave during the service.

And some folks are very intimidated by that mountain of

dirt. And I understand, I mean, when

you arrive, even if you've done this 30 times or more, it's

you're honoring the life of a loved one of someone who is no

longer physically here on Earth. And it's very an emotional

experience. And then you add this piece on

to it as well. Can make it overwhelming in a

sense and so. By the way, that's part of the

reason why we want to do this podcast.

Yep. Is even just hearing the

description of it because you, you know, chances are if you're

listening, you may not have seen this.

We just want to demystify it a little bit.

Absolutely. You know, just so we can embrace

all the the strengths, the strengths of it.

So. Right.

Yeah, keep going. Yeah, so seeing the the piece

that always gets me the most is when families do decide to help

put the dirt back into the grave.

And honestly, actually most all families end up putting at least

a scoop or two into the grave when it first hits the the

casket into and into the ground. It makes it very real for

people, but it also seems to signify a release of hope and a

release of I know that Christ is with me in this process.

I don't, I don't know how else better to explain it, but it's

just that noise of, of hearing. It kind of starts some of that

grieving process and then it's interesting.

You'll hear as the process goes on because it is a big mound of

dirt. People start to tell stories

about the one that they are burying.

They start to laugh. They they may even start to cry

more. It is a release of emotion in

ways that you couldn't ever really name until you're out

there seeing it. And and participating in it as

well. And there is something about

being embodied creatures that, you know, we like to separate.

We're physical and we're mental and we're emotional, and those

are like separate categories. But there is something about

when like you get to participate and contribute to the ceremony

in the tradition that's happening like that it they all

interlock together and so doing a physical task of putting dirt

into a hole turns on something emotional and like that's really

good and healthy for us and even.

Doing it in community? Yeah.

Doing it with family, Doing it with people that know and love

you, a shared experience, a shared grief, a shared morning.

It's a really, it's a great service to the friends and

family to be able to enter into that grief in some ways that

are, are challenging. You know, you always say, let me

know if there's anything I can do for you.

Knowing they don't really, I'm going to take them a meal, but

what, what am I going to do for them?

You know, the chances of us being able to really sit down

and talk through memories and grieve, particularly in those

first few days because there's so many details.

And what I'm hearing say as this begins to to unlock a lot of

that in a, in a even a more free sense because of the physical

nature of committing to or returning the body back to the

ground. Right.

Absolutely. And even like I think I just

mentioned about even having stories that are shared and

laughter and even laughing that it takes a while to get the dirt

back into the hole. I mean, on a summer day, I've

seen men out there and in their suit jacket have to take their

suit jacket off and take their tie off and they start laughing.

And it, it again releases almost some tension as well, that it's

OK to grieve with hope and to grieve with a piece of your own

humanity in it. We have, we have children, kids

who love to help with this process.

We have shovels that are a bit smaller for them.

We had, I remember one family, they did a great job at getting

a lot of logistics handled and they were really, really wanting

to honor their loved 1. And so they had some some

specifics that they wanted out at their land in it during their

service. And then I look back and notice

that there were five daughters and sisters and nieces and I,

I'd be honest, I'm not sure what we were waiting on, but they

just started with the dirt. And usually it's, I mean, it's

just been opposite where it's usually one of the adults and

they come. But those five girls started the

the process and just, and they were very respectful.

It's like they, you know, they knew exactly what to do.

And I remember the one of the parents saying, oh, I guess

we're starting, you know, like, let's let's do this.

Yeah. What do you think that does just

for the kids? You know, again, just that idea

of not like growing up and not feeling like death is allowed,

you know, like how, how is this kind of helpful to them, do you

think? Absolutely.

I think it exposes them to a very natural and like you said

earlier, guaranteed part of life.

It helps include them in a process to make it almost for

some less scary, less intimidating.

I'm not saying that they don't treat it with a level of respect

and at the same time they see, Oh OK, mom is now with Jesus.

I helped put the dirt on. We've had several kids like turn

around and say, did you see did you see I I helped mom and

meaning like go be with Jesus because they were the ones

helping. So it gives them a sense of

partnership with their with their family.

In a very developmentally appropriate way.

Like there's parts of all of that that they're not ready for,

you know, and they learn as they get older, but this is as much

as they can understand. But it's not, you can't be a

part of this. This is not for you.

Like this is something that we're all a part of.

Absolutely. And it's not.

And we've had some families and kids out there who decide they

don't want to help place the dirt and that's OK too.

We want to make sure that people don't feel pressured.

We've had some folks who don't want to do the dirt and then we

as a staff will say, well then we'll we'll take care of this

later. That's OK.

Which is also emblematic of what the Church is for for its

people. Right.

Well, and one, I want you to tell a few more stories and I

also have another question, but one particularly beautiful story

that I heard was father and son that had a broken, a broken

relationship for a long time. If I'm not mistaken, it was like

decades. And there was some

reconciliation that the sickness and illness brought in towards

the end of life. And so this reconciliation

happens and then death happens and then the burial happens.

And then you can correct me if I have any of these details wrong.

Then the son wanted to bury his dad just kind of all by himself,

like he wanted that long, slow process to just be this

culmination of this reconciliation.

And I imagine he was having a great conversation with God and

his dad and all that right there.

But it's just a beautiful picture of, I don't really know

of another way to serve that son in that situation right at that

time, in that loss, then giving him the privilege of doing that.

Absolutely. One thing we haven't talked

about, which I think is also a really beautiful part of the

community piece, is talk about how the the casket gets put in

the ground. Sure.

Yeah. So when Palmetto Mortuary

arrives, we there are slats that are placed across the whole of

the grave and we place the casket onto those those slats.

And then there are three to four, lack of better term, rope

that is underneath the casket. And so to in order to bury, we

ask any family members who feel like they are physically able to

surround the casket. So usually there's about four on

each side who are able to lower the casket themselves into the

grave. And so it is, there's no machine

to lower it. It is all by family and or

friends, you know, community members.

We've even had a 10 year old who you know, wasn't able to fully

physically lower, but his family member was right behind him

hoping to lower. And so we Yep, we rely on the

family friends and or staff to help lower the the loved 1 into

the ground. So yes, absolutely.

I mean even even that piece of it is is done by by the church.

Yeah, that is really sweet. That's cool, yeah.

What other stories do you do you have just of meaningful moments

from the past few years? Absolutely.

There was actually one recently that really stood out to to just

me personally. We had a family who decided to

bury their infant. And so as we were just talking

about even the the lowering of the casket is done by the church

and volunteers. Well, in this case, the dad

decided to get into the hole himself with the mom at

graveside and to lower the casket into the grave while he

was standing in it. And he and his wife and others

started to sing over the casket and over the the grave site

while standing in the grave. And it it was moving.

It was very, very powerful to see that done and which wouldn't

maybe have gotten done with a more.

Traditional funeral service. I'm not saying that they that

they can't also have special parts because I've been of parts

of amazing traditional Funeral services, but because this was

done naturally and he was able to lower his own child into the

grave really was moving yeah to me and I think helped the family

in their process as. Well, and I think, you know, one

thing is it, it wasn't all planned, you know, like you

don't really know until you get there some of these details and

just to see kind of the spirit lead and the intimacy and the

uniqueness again, all very appropriate.

And that's why, you know, we have Jennifer and her team and

pastoral staff. We're, we're making sure we're

guarding the appropriateness and the reverence and the sanctity

of the moment, but also giving freedom and permission for, for

families to begin and continue the grieving process in, in

unique ways. Can you just as we wrap up, can

you tell us a little bit about how these graves are marked?

Yes. So we have like a better term, I

call them river rock stones. So they're just flat smooth

stones outside each grave marker at the at the top.

And I order them and there's just, it's very simple.

We have the name and the birth date and the death date.

Sometimes we may include a scripture reference, but that is

the just like Psalm, you know, 46, 10 and whatever that that

may be. Sure, we don't put the full

Scripture reference. It's just very simple and and

not overly right done. Yeah, not overly manicured and

not overly kept in some ways, right.

And, and one thing that you, I noticed, cuz it had been over a

year, better part of a year, maybe even a year and a half

since I've been out there from one visit to the next.

And you know, what's, what's really great is you watch the

erosion of the mounds of dirt that just over time just kind of

returned back to Flat Earth. And you can, you can see because

we, we do bury in rows and you can just see, you know, one

mound is a little higher than the next one and it's a little

lower. It's a little lower and a little

lower. And there was something that was

tangible about that. There was something really

emotive to me when I, when I was out there.

One, just the reference that these are these are lives, these

are believers in Christ. These are souls that are now,

you know, to be absent from the bodies to be present with the

Lord all that it's just so visceral, even on this natural

land. But the idea that is that in two

years, in five years, in 10 years, you know, Lord willing,

whatever, that you would just be walking through a field, right?

And you would just see, you would see these stones and, and

just the idea and the anticipation of, of the beauty

of the dead in Christ rising one day.

I mean, I, I get Terry just thinking about what that picture

could look like should the Lord Terry and there be thousands of

people, but just there's something, again, all very

biblically based, God honoring, Christ centered, Spirit

empowered and community driven about all of that.

We're just, we're just excited to just kind of share that with

you guys. Jennifer, what else should we

know? Anything that we can be

volunteering for, anything we could be planning or praying

for. Just kind of put a wrap on this

update for us. Absolutely.

We are always looking at ways to continue to honor those who have

died. We are looking at ways that we

can continue to keep the keep the property natural and as is,

but provide some sort of, I'm not going to say landscape

architecture because that's not what we're doing, but maybe a

little, a few more trees or a few more benches.

Or we want it to be in a place where people can go and walk,

walk the land, to pray in the land and to be a place that

people can visit, you know, their loved ones, while also

keeping it true to its environment.

We are potentially, I'm not sure, looking at maybe an

amphitheater out there to to have another place that we could

have a service. Potentially a little larger

service then. Potentially, OK, it's in the

process, but it's also just changing sure as as needs arise.

Well, and I mean, we said this earlier, but there's not a whole

lot of examples, right? Correct.

Right. So we're not there.

We didn't Google and then just come up with the best ideas,

like some of this we're just making up.

Yeah. Building the plane in the air,

if you know. Yes, absolutely.

But things like maybe having some tea olive bushes out there

that smell really nice, but also would be able to withstand the

elements of, you know, nature and not us having to keep up

with a lot. We would love to, you know,

somehow look at different ways of having memorial services of

for folks in our congregation and, and some of those community

partners. So we do have some things that

we are continuing to work on and think through and, and in a way

be creative with, but also remembering that, you know, this

isn't a cemetery. I'm, I'm not the heads

groundskeeper at it either. And so thinking of ways that we

can honor loved ones while also being good stewards of, of the

land. Yeah.

Well, I want to commend you and your team just for just working

diligently to love and care for these families and on the big

picture, create, create something that is unique and

beneficial in so many different ways.

And hopefully even as you're listening to this, if you're

hearing about this for the first time or if you're just being

reminded, it just helps us connect the life and death

process to Scripture, to the life of the church, and to

really the hope and reality of heaven.

And if if nothing else, hopefully we've accomplished

that in our conversation today. So we thanks for helping guide

some of our discussion. Jennifer, you're the best

people. If they have questions, they go

to our website. They can e-mail you.

And yeah, you know where to find this.

So thanks for listening. We really appreciate you guys.

We'll talk to you again soon.