Ross and Barbara Anderson have a wide and deep network of friends who love them and continue to bear with them the weight of losing their son Luke Kenneth Anderson on August 27, 2007. Many have asked that we work with Ross and Barbie to make the “Service of Worship and Thanksgiving for the Life Of Luke Kenneth Anderson” available online to those friends and any others who might be helped through this witness to the mercy and power of Jesus Christ. We are eager to do this.

The service includes the hymns that we sang, the testimonies from family and friends and counselors, and a message of hope from God’s word in John 11. If you listen, keep in mind how agonizingly real this loss is to so many, and let yourself enter into a family’s grief with the same confidence in God’s sovereign mercy that is sustaining them. May the Lord make this season of pain and this service of worship a powerful witness to the greatness of Jesus Christ.

For the Anderson family,

Pastor John

Update: Here is a personal word from Ross and Barbie concerning this post.

Why offer this worship service in memory of our son Luke to a wide audience? Poor in spirit and mourning, we have only begun our journey of grief. We live with unanswered questions. But we cling to those things of which we are certain. Here are two such certainties. The first is that Luke's life is not defined by his death. We hope that all who knew Luke or knew of him may glimpse the meaning of his life through this service. Secondly, our only hope today for Luke in death and for ourselves in life is in the love and grace of the Lord Jesus. Through Luke's life and death may we all see Jesus.