Crashes, Scars and Resurrection

Every now and then I sit through a really good Final Expense training. The presenter is knowledgeable, the information is solid, and the systems being explained clearly work for the people who are using them successfully. Someone is talking about lead flow, objection handling, follow-up strategy, and how to guide a conversation toward a decision, and I find myself nodding along because I understand the importance of all of it. And then, somewhere about halfway through, usually when everyone else seems energized and ready to conquer the world, a quiet thought slips into my mind: What exactly am I doing here? It is not disagreement. I am not rolling my eyes or dismissing the training. In fact, most of the time I respect the people teaching it and appreciate what they are sharing. It's like suddenly realizing you are wearing someone else’s jacket. It fits well enough, but you are aware every few minutes that it was not originally tailored for you. For most of my adult life, people invited me into their lives as a pastor. I spent decades sitting in hospital rooms where time felt suspended, standing beside families at gravesides trying to find words when there really were none, and sharing conversations around kitchen tables where life’s hardest questions were asked without rehearsal. People asked me to listen, to pray, to help them make meaning, and sometimes simply to sit quietly so they would not feel alone. So when I hear training language about moving a client toward commitment or learning how to handle resistance, something inside me shifts just a little. Not because the ideas are wrong. They are practical and necessary in any business. But a small voice inside me starts asking uncomfortable questions. Am I becoming a salesman? Am I pretending to be someone I am not? Do I actually belong in this room? And that is usually the moment the word shows up. Fraud. It feels strange to admit that, because I believe deeply in the work of Final Expense planning. I have seen too many families living through grief while also trying to figure out how to pay for a funeral. I have watched spouses quietly panic over finances while still trying to hold themselves together emotionally. I have seen delayed services, difficult decisions, and the heavy burden that falls on families who never expected to be making financial choices at the same moment they are saying goodbye. I know preparation matters. I know this work helps people. And yet the language of the industry sometimes feels foreign to instincts shaped by ministry rather than sales. Pastors learn to listen longer than they speak and to walk at the pace of the person in front of them, while sales training naturally emphasizes direction and outcomes. Those approaches are not enemies, but learning to live in both worlds creates tension. I am beginning to understand that the discomfort may actually be a sign that something important is still intact within me. Many people enter this field learning empathy as a professional skill. I am coming from the opposite direction. Compassion has always been the starting point. The real challenge is learning how preparation fits inside that compassion without losing its heart. I am not trying to sell peace of mind as a slogan. I am trying to help families avoid unnecessary suffering later. When I look at it that way, the work begins to feel familiar again. I am still sitting at tables listening to stories. I am still helping people face realities they would rather postpone. I am still walking with families through conversations about mortality, love, responsibility, and legacy. The difference is that now the care I offer happens before the funeral instead of after it. Maybe the reason I sometimes feel like a fraud is not because I do not belong in this work, but because I will always remember that there are real human stories behind every application and policy number. The tension I feel may simply be the growing edge of learning a new language while holding onto an old calling. I suspect that feeling may never disappear completely, and honestly, I hope it doesn’t. The day this work becomes only about production numbers instead of people is probably the day I should step away. Until then, I will keep learning the business side of things while remaining grounded in the part of me that believes this is, at its heart, an act of love. I may never sound like a traditional insurance agent, and perhaps that is exactly as it should be. Maybe I am simply a pastor who now helps families prepare for the moment when love has to carry on without them. I am still learning this work. Some days I sit in training taking notes and wondering if I am behind everyone else. Other days I sit with someone who tells me about their children, their health, or their quiet worry about becoming a burden someday, and in those moments the purpose becomes clear again. T he titles have changed over the years. Pastor. Celebrant. Now Final Expense Specialist. But the calling underneath those titles feels remarkably familiar. It has always been about helping people face hard realities with a little more peace and a little less fear. So I will keep showing up. I will keep learning. I will keep listening for the stories behind the paperwork and remembering that this work is not ultimately about policies or premiums. It is about love planning ahead. And if someday a family is able to grieve without financial panic, if a spouse can focus on remembering instead of worrying about bills, if peace arrives just a little sooner because a conversation happened in time, then maybe this work does belong to me after all.

There is a moment in almost every conversation when someone tilts their head and asks the question carefully, like they are not quite sure if they might accidentally offend me. “So… what do you do now? ” This used to be an easy answer. Depending on your faith background, I was a pastor, minister, preacher, or sometimes priest. Then I retired from the United Methodist Church and suddenly the answer got a little complicated. Now I have to think about it. I usually start by saying I am a celebrant, which means I then have to explain what a celebrant is. Yes, I officiate weddings and funerals, but it is different than being a minister. I even wrote a blog to explain that part of my life. It would probably be smarter if I just smiled and stopped talking, but I usually add that I also help families with final expense planning. That is often the moment their expression turns into polite confusion. People understand weddings and funerals. But final expense? That phrase floats in the air like a balloon nobody is quite sure who should grab until someone finally says it out loud. “So… are you a life insurance salesman? ” I smile and nod. Short answer: yes. Longer answer: yes, but not the version you are picturing. When many people hear “life insurance,” their brain pulls up the image of a pushy salesperson with a stack of forms ( think Ned Ryerson from Groundhog Day ) and a conversation nobody wanted to have in the first place. I understand why that picture exists. I really do. But my version of this work did not start like that. It began in churches and funeral homes, in living rooms where families were exhausted, at kitchen tables covered with paperwork, and in quiet conversations that began with the sentence, “ We didn’t realize how expensive this would be. ” I officiated hundreds of funerals before I ever helped anyone buy a policy, and there was a pattern you could almost set your watch by. Some families were grieving and remembering, telling stories that somehow held both laughter and tears in the same breath. Other families were doing math. Hard math. The kind that sends people checking account balances and calculating what can wait and what cannot. Those are two very different kinds of grieving, and they lead to two very different funerals. I will never forget the first time that difference really hit me. A widow told me, very quietly, that she had managed to scrape together enough money to bury her husband. She said it like someone describing a marathon they had barely finished. Then she added, almost as an afterthought, “Now I’m not sure how I’m going to pay the rest of the bills.” That moment followed me home. It sat with me at my desk and rode shotgun in my car for a long time, because grief is already heavy. Watching families carry financial stress on top of it felt like watching someone try to carry groceries, luggage, and a piano all at once. Something in me kept thinking there has to be a way to move the piano ahead of time. Final expense planning is not really about death. It is about the people who will still be here. The spouse who should not have to start a GoFundMe while planning a funeral, and the adult children who should be able to focus on saying goodbye instead of opening credit cards. It is the quiet gift of leaving things a little easier than we found them. I sometimes call it the Last Love Letter. Not the poetic kind, the practical kind. The kind that says, “I thought about you. I prepared for you. I wanted to leave you one less burden.” These days I talk with people who requested information, sometimes months ago. I make a lot of phone calls, leave a lot of voicemails, and send a lot of texts that begin with, “Hey, this is Marty…” Often they do not answer. Sometimes they hang up. Sometimes they say no. Sometimes they say, “I’ve been meaning to take care of this.” And occasionally someone says, “I’m really glad you called.” Those moments matter more than the rest combined, because every once in a while a future funeral gets lighter, and that feels like a continuation of the same calling I have always had, just from a different angle. When I was a pastor, I walked with families after a loss. Now, sometimes, I get to help them before one. The tools look different, but the heart behind it does not. If you ever find yourself wondering whether this is something you should think about, I am always happy to have a conversation. No pressure, no scripts, just a human conversation about taking care of the people we love.