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Obituary

In future we will be open and interested to print from time to time obituaries from brothers and sisters in our churches who have passed away. The following guidelines shall help us to make sure that also this aspect of our magazine is done “for the edification of the church” (1Cor 14).

Goal

We do not want to honor men. Obituaries will not be printed to bring fame upon a certain family or assembly. We certainly will not print any statements that will hurt others or take sides in any political matters amongst the churches. Instead we want to help our readers to “consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith” (Heb 13:7). We want to encourage the saints to benefit from God's work in the lives of those who have gone before us. We want to learn lessons from their challenges and from their victories.

Selection

• The person needs to have had a very good testimony by brothers and sisters in his/her local church, from those in other churches he/she was interacting with as well as by people in the community where he/she was living.
• The person needs to have been involved in Christian ministry (church leadership, work with women, youth or children, evangelism, Bible teaching, etc.) for many years, be it at his/her local church or at regional/provincial level.
• The person needs to have been an outstanding model for the Christian community who can be commended for his/her character, attitude and work.
• We need the consent of both the family and the church of the late brother/sister before the obituary can be printed.
• Other peoples' life story can be considered for special reasons.

Content

1. Personal data:
Any data that helps the readers understand who this person was (date of birth, family, education, work, start of life with God, church membership). Details that are not crucial for our readers will be left out (like which school he/she attended, etc.).
This part should not be longer than 3-5 sentences, all in all not more than 20% of the whole article.

2. Lessons for us to learn, answering some of the following questions:
- How did this person serve God, his/her fellow Christians and/or the community? Why?
- Did this person go through specific challenges in his/her life? How did he/she handle them?
- What are specific lessons that this person learned from God?
- What are specific lessons that God wants to teach us through his/her life?

3. Photo:
If possible, a photo with good contrast on the person's face should be provided for printing next to the article.

Length

In order to fit on one page in “Natuleya!”, the whole article must not be longer than 2,500 keystrokes in one language (that is letters and empty spaces together). Exceptionally two pages can be used, which would mean 5,000 keystrokes. The computer will count these for the author (under “Word count”); if that is not possible, the Editor will adapt the article accordingly.