I find it helpful to think of the congregation having certain parameters for funerals before I think of my own. Congregational parameters help with the question of which funerals to do in their sactuary. Then my own parameters can help me decide about doing non-member funerals in the funeral home or at graveside for others.
Members of the congregation and former members still involved in some other LCMS congregation are the usual funerals we would hold in the sactuary. Exceptions to this may include non-member spouses or family members who were not active in other denominations or hostile to LCMS doctrine and practice but were Baptized and showed some evidence of continuing in the faith despite their delinquency or distance from the congregation.
Those who don’t have such family connections but were Baptized, not hostile, and showed some evidence of Christian faith (preferrably I’d actually met them when they were alive) I might suggest a service in the funeral home. In those cases, I have to modify some of the liturgy and I use a text which demonstrates that God’s salvation does not depend upon us but on the Word and Promises of God through Christ. For example, “I will lose none of those whom the Father has given me.” That’s true for everyone, of course; but if I can point to Baptism or to a point in life where the Word had a Gospel effect, it at least gives me some way to “attached” the gift of salvation to the individual.
I justify this in my own thinking by remembering that not everyone who leaves a congregation or who fails to allign with a confessing congregation does so out of a rejection of Christ or of faith. People leave congegations or stay away from the institutional church for many reasons which are inconsistent with the faith in their hearts. I believe that is a very dangerous thing to do and goes against our Lord’s command, but if there is a “thief on the cross” or “woman caught in adultery” moment to grasp onto, I try to err on the side of the Gospel.
These days more people of even church-going families are opting to do the entire visitation and service at the funeral home. I’d prefer it in the church, of course. Heck, I’d actually prefer the funeral right during a regular Divine Service! But again, people make those decisions not to reject the church but due to other considerations.
I realize that this approach takes us away from the doctrine that there is no invisible church outside the visible church. So what I look for is evidence of the individual being a member of the visible church not by external membership affiliation but by statements or choices which made their faith at least somewhat visible, albeit not in the ‘usual’ way of affiliating with a worshiping congregation or body of believers in the usual sense. It’s easiest to do this, of course, if I was able to have a pastoral conversation with the individual.
I have had some success with difficult cases by “thinking about this out loud” with the family that comes to ask that I conduct a funeral. If they can tell that I’m looking for something to “hang onto” they’ve sometimes realized that there really isn’t anything. Then perhaps they have a visitation and maybe a “program” at the funeral home but I meet them at the graveside where they don’t really want me to talk about the individual but to give the readings and prayers which, of course, I’d be glad to do at about any occasion. I try to realize that they’re trying to do all that they can for their loved one and they really do care about propriety. So if I’m perceived as counseling and guiding them among options they’re less likely to ask for too much.
Finally, I try to evaluate the damage I might do by being too dismissive or coming across as uncaring. Perhaps a parent or grandparent would be so damaged by my refusal that they would leave the congregation and thereby put their own faith and salvation in jeapardy. Is it worth that risk of offending or driving away a person already overcome with grief? So again, if I’m going to err I’m probably going to err on the side of the Gospel. Over time, they come to realize that they put me out on a limb and some have thanked me later for bearing with them in their grief.