Gemeentes as begeleiers van kollektiewe rouprosesse

Local congregations as facilitators of collective grieving. Since 1990 South Africa has beencharacterised by far-reaching change in all spheres of society. A recent PhD dissertationcompleted at the University of Pretoria described the loss members of the Dutch ReformedChurch (DRC) experience because of the rapid change. Experiences of loss are commonenough to be described as collective experiences of a community. Resulting grief processesare long standing and unresolved. Grieving is the normal human response to loss, but manyDRC members (and probably the denomination and the whole Afrikaans community), gotstuck because of unresolved grief dynamics. The main contribution of this article is to arguethat local communities of faith can serve its members and the community by accepting thetask to initiate and guide collective grief processes. Intentional grief is seen as a ministry ofhope, resulting in a new and more appropriate identity.