These workshops equip church teams and ministers' fraternals to guide grieving families with wisdom and compassion — helping them make choices that serve their grief, not complicate it.

What we offer

• 1-2 hour sessions (in person across Greater Sydney, Central Coast, Lower Hunter, Blue Mountains, Greater Illawarra, or Southern Highlands — or online, as required)

• A free service as part of our ministry

What you'll learn

Understanding the family's journey

Families often come from places of genuine care — hospitals, aged care facilities, even the Coroner's office. Yet they can then encounter a funeral process that is not necessarily constructive to their grief. There are simple things that could have helped them.

Guiding families toward healing decisions

Help families discern what truly serves their grief: what their loved one would have wanted, what they themselves need (even if different), and why they must sometimes resist well-meaning pressure from extended family or friends that doesn't actually help. All of these paradigms have an implication for every decision.

Practical questions — informed by three business models

Marc has worked inside traditional family funeral businesses, co-founded a national charity's funeral service, and studied the disruptors. This gives church teams and ministers' fraternals insight few funeral directors possess: how different business models shape what families experience and what choices actually serve their grief.

What do families think about seeing their loved one? How do they feel about having the coffin in a service? What would make them choose burial or cremation? What are the real limits and options regarding costs? How can understanding funeral business models help families choose what genuinely matters — and resist being steered toward what doesn't?

Scripture and comfort

Over many years, we've seen common passages read at funerals. It is indeed good to turn to Psalm 23, to know that Christ can be with us in the valley of the shadow of death. It is a comfort to know that Jesus doesn't simply raise Lazarus from the dead — Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life. But the Bible has a wealth of rich truth to bring the Christian — and appeal to the not-yet Christian — to find hope and healing in the midst of suffering. We take you through some of those passages, particularly the Psalms.

Learning from each other

We've known traditional funeral directors in Australia and internationally who have offered aftercare in the form of memorial services at Christmas or Fathers' Day. Beyond memorial services, we give families practical help to pursue what brings them joy, and carefully chosen grief resources like the Gospel of John and a Christian book on suffering and hope.

Funeral directors are not grief experts, which is why this discussion matters. We'll explore what funeral directors and church teams and ministers' fraternals can each do to help families beyond the funeral, drawing on your pastoral wisdom to strengthen the care we can offer together.

Your host

Marc brings a rare perspective — his family established funeral businesses in Sydney and Melbourne in the 19th century, and helped found a memorial park in Canberra and five industry associations. Several served as presidents of the Australian Funeral Directors Association.

Marc has collaborated on world-first innovations in the funeral sector, including designing and making award-winning hearses and helping a national charity establish one of Australia's fastest-growing funeral services.

Marc & Friends is a business, but we're about genuinely loving people — not just through the funeral itself, but in the whole journey of grief. We believe it is a ministry first — expressed through thoughtful innovation and compassionate service. Above all, we seek to make the fullness of Christ known amid death and grief.