Living Fully, Dying Well Planning Kit: A Study for Small Groups

Our best decisions about life's important events are seldom made in a time of crisis. Living Fully, Dying Well is designed to assist us in making careful, wise and prayerful preparation for meeting life's most important moments.

In this study, participants will learn how to face openly and unafraid the benefits and limitations of aging and end of life decisions.

The planning kit includes a copy of the: leader's guide, participant's book, and the DVD featuring an opening video for each of the eight sessions. The eight sessions work in Sunday school classes or in small groups and can be studied in a weekly sequence or as stand-alone sessions.

Chapters include:

Living Fully
Theology of Aging
Our Culture of Aging
Finding Purpose and Meaning
Getting It All Together: Practical Decisions
Dying Well
What Happens When We Die
How Then Shall We Live

Click here to read the Introduction

Video segments for the eight sessions include diverse presenters including Rueben Job, Rev. John Collett, Director of the Center of Aging, Dr. Rick Gentzler, physician David Jarvis, attorney Mary Boyd and more.
View the promotional clip.


"Living fully is life's most rewarding gift. Young or old, rich or poor, at the peak of our powers or weakened by the limitations of age or disease, living fully is something that in our better moments we all desire and with God's help can all achieve. ... Just as we cannot live fully without serious consideration of life and it's meaning, we cannot die well without consideration of death and it's meaning for us all." from Living Fully.


"I think Living Fully, Dying Well is the best book on the combined subjects of living and dying that I have ever seen. Usually these subjects are dealt with separately, but Rueben Job has the insight to know how integral the two are and he deals with the process of living, aging and dying as really one. This is a good resource for individual reading, but an even stronger case can be made for this as an excellent resource for groups in the church who need a method for exploring living, aging and dying as a natural process of life itself. This study invites individual reflection in the midst of Christian community where a group of persons can make use of input from presenters of various disciplines who share their ideas on the subject (this input comes from viewing a DVD). I think this study is unique in that it enables persons to address the issues of death and dying as a part life.
Living Fully, Dying Well has excellent teaching/discussion helps: Each chapter has the Teaching Point, Scripture on which the chapter is based, Prayer, Hymn suggestion, Notes about the DVD presentation, Questions for reflection/discussion, and other Resources. This is an outstanding book by Bishop Rueben Job and should be used to open dialogue in an area that has too long been neglected."

Larry W. Sonner, D.Min. I am an ordained United Methodist minister who is retired. For 27 years I was the Pastoral Counselor for the Iowa Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.

"I like the way it tackles every aspect of aging - the practical, spiritual, physical, and psychological. It is a resource that has been needed for some time and it is done extremely well. Thank you for producing it and thank you for making it available to our churches."

Ray Roberts
Media Specialist
East Ohio Conference
United Methodist Church