Over the course of 20 years of counseling as a pastor, Randy Hemphill, MDiv ’00, DMin ’14, heard one question more than any other: “How do I grieve?”

Learning how to respond to that question and how to help Christians walk through life’s difficult moments and process them well, led to Hemphill’s latest book, We Grieve Our Losses: A Christian Grief Workbook to Help You Slow Your Soul and Encounter God in Sorrow.

The book’s title comes from a core value at All Christ Church in Auburn, Alabama, where Hemphill serves as the congregational care pastor and where the practice of grieving loss and rediscovering the “gift” of grief first started for him

“It started with introducing leadership to the language of grief. They knew it was a passion of mine. It just began to be part of our culture and language,” Hemphill said. “It wasn’t me getting up and saying it or our pastor saying it.”

This past spring, the church held a course on grief, not necessarily for those who have lost loved ones, but simply to learn the language of grief, how to understand it and how to “battle through the gift of grief.” More than 150 people attended, many of them college students.

“We sometimes think discipleship is ‘get on fire for God; do things for God,’ and that’s part of it. But one of the loudest ways we preach the Gospel is how we grieve our losses. If the world saw churches and believers grieve their losses in a more biblical way, they would come to know Jesus more deeply,” Hemphill said.

Grief is a “lost discipline” that the church needs to recover, Hemphill said.

“It’s something we’ve lost through the years in our fast-paced culture and the church growth movement,” Hemphill said. “There’s something about the slowing of our souls. Even pastors need to learn to better grieve our losses, transitions and disappointments. We go through so many things. We need to slow ourselves down and grieve those things.”

Grief, Hemphill said, gives the soul the ability to “expand and contain God’s authority and presence” in a life-changing way. Grief brings a surprising strength, he said.

“I don’t think we can meet God in any other way quite that intimately,” Hemphill said.

“When the story doesn’t go as planned, there’s an invitation to grief. Paul’s thorn in the flesh forced him to grieve some things in his story. It put him in a posture of repentance and surrender. It’s a way of absorbing those losses instead of trying to control them.”

Americans are in a “controlling culture,” Hemphill said, leaving us unable to process life’s hardships

“Wherever we have gaps in our story, we tend to control the gaps instead of grieving the gaps, process through these things and absorb those losses,” Hemphill said.

Walking through the grief process has made a tangible impact at All Christ Church. “Our church is experiencing real revival and a lot of it has come through grief,” Hemphill said.

He wrote the book because he wants to see local churches healthy. The book can help leaders and their staff work through their own losses and pain, making them better equipped to lead and teach others.

“Pastors carry so much,” Hemphill said. “Part of what can prevent burnout and moral failure is if we learn to grieve well. We have to make sure we are walking through our own hurts and losses, marriage struggles, friendships.”

Reflecting on his time at Beeson, Hemphill said he has so much appreciation for how the school prepared him for his ministry.

“It’s those relationships with other students and with other professors that I hold with great fondness,” Hemphill said. “Some of the faculty became father figures and mentors to me. You just don’t get that everywhere.”

Hemphill said he was drawn to Beeson by the small class size and the interdenominational spirit, allowing him to learn from men and women across denominational lines.

“It stretched me as a small-town Baptist,” Hemphill said. “I needed that being stretched. It stretched my theology and my practice of ministry. So much of what I was exposed to in classes has shaped me into who I am today. It’s a special place to me and I’m thankful for the torch that continues to get carried now.”