ChurchFunerals Direct announces partnership with OARBC

June 25, 2024/Business, Products/

Earlier this month ChurchFunerals Direct, an Ohio-based funeral services provider made this announcement that they had formed a partnership with the Ohio Association of Regular Baptist Churches (OARBC). According to the announcement, ChurchFunerals Direct is now “the official state funeral provider for the 134 churches in the OARBC.

According to Mark May, ChurchFunerals Direct President, “This statewide partnership will provide significant benefits to all of their churches as they minister in their local communities. We are honored to have them join us in our mission of providing families with better funerals at a much lower cost. . . . .”

The release goes on to say this about ChurchFunerals Direct, “ChurchFunerals Direct is a full-service licensed funeral home that owns and operates the ChurchFunerals Direct Network. The funeral directors at ChurchFunerals Direct specialize in conducting full-service Christian funerals and memorial services in churches for a fraction of the cost that other funeral homes charge. ChurchFunerals Direct has a business model that enables them to serve families throughout the entire state of Ohio and beyond.”

Here is information about the partnership as shared on the website of the Ohio Association of Regular Baptist Churches (OARBC).

Here is the website of ChurchFunerals Direct.

Funeral Director Daily take: I saw this article and read it and I will tell you that I am not very well versed with the operations of ChurchFuneral Direct. However, it appears that they have, or plan to put together, a system in place that may appeal to those who believe that they have no need for a traditional funeral home building.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

It’s somewhat apparent to me that the business thesis is based on clientele saving money by not using the “bricks and mortar” that traditional funeral homes have. . . and that the savings on the cost of the no bricks and mortar funeral home selection can be passed on to the consumer. Nothing wrong with that philosophy. . . .and I’m guessing that ChurchFunerals Direct will get some clientele.

I also think that more importantly than the philosophy of ChurchFunerals Direct is the realization to what is perceived by many as “high-cost” traditional funeral homes are being challenged from many angles. It reminds me somewhat of what one might call “Guerilla Warfare”.

“Guerilla Warfare” can be defined as “fast-moving small-scale actions against orthodox military and police”. I think that is what traditional funeral homes are up against right now. . . .”Small-scale actions agains orthodox (or traditional) funeral homes”.

I don’t see one funeral service or disposition method attacking traditional funeral homes with a frontal assault that you might agree happened with non-traditional cremation services in years gone by. But I do see a whole bunch of consumer options that don’t have much market share demand individually affecting traditional funeral homes, but the aggregate of those options could have real negative effects on the traditional brick and mortar funeral homes.

What are these options? Well, ChurchFunerals Direct is one, but there are many others such as Green Funerals, Natural Organic Reduction, Alkaline Hydrolysis, and Direct Cremation with no services. It’s my opinion that each of these selections could grow to a certain percentage of death care dispositions.

Let’s say that each of those options grows over the next couple of years to simply a 5% market share. If that is the case and traditional funeral homes don’t offer the options, that’s a total of 25% of your business that could be lost.

That’s why I think it is important to have these options available on your price lists and the relationships with those that might help you offer them solidified.

I don’t think a “direct frontal assault” will hit your funeral home but getting chipped away at by “Guerilla Warfare” might be just as damaging.

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