That's great. I'm glad you were able to learn that through your church. Let me just be clear that I don't doubt for a single minute that your heart doesn't burn with a passion to serve the Lord. I do fear however that you may trust to your traditions at the expense of the scriptures. This is why I've been sticking to the whole "Dead know not anything" stance. If scripture does not go contrary to itself, then any attempt to explain that phrase away is an attempt to cause the scriptures to discredit themselves. That I cannot do.
Thanks for your concern. I appreciate it.
The Scriptures are part of the Church. The Church is the Body and Bride of Christ. Christ is the Head. What we believe comes from Him and our understanding of who He is and what He revealed to us, and that most certainly includes first and foremost the Holy Scriptures. What we believe is what was taught to us by the Apostles, and what their disciples and the disciples of those disciples translated and interpreted the Words of God and the Apostles to mean. It's really what it's about. The CF's interpretations and people's interpretations, whether they understood from what their teachers/elders in their traditions taught them verses in the bible meant, or they came about it on their own.
We believe in the Body of Christ not being broken, not even separating us from God in our physical deaths. So when we read praying for each other, it encompasses all and is in the communion of the saints as a whole.
Others will interpret this to mean as some have said here, only those on earth. We obviously disagree because of the CF's interpretation of no division in His Body, the Body being One, undivided, the praying for one another, the visions of the Elders with the prayers of those on earth in the bowls of incense, which always have represented our prayers going to heaven (that shows in Revelation). We did not just make up what we believe. The liturgy came about from what was taught in Exodus and mostly resembles what was explained in Isaiah and Revelation. When we are worshiping God, we are in the presence of the Trinity, the angels, and all the saints on this earth and in heaven. For about an hour and a half each Sunday, we are in heaven with God.
So, I do understand your concern and your perspective. What I would like is for you and others to understand ours. That we do not make up things. We do not just do things out of the blue. We follow what was taught and our interpretations of what the Bible OT and NT means obviously is different than some others. This does not mean we follow traditions of men, but rather we follow Apostolic Tradition - Holy Tradition - and follow what the Bible says fully. It just looks and seems different to those who may not understand or comprehend our ancient understanding and perspective.
When He died on the Cross for us and broke the chains of hades, and opened the tombs of those waiting there for Him. Death no longer held us captive. We are no longer separated from Christ. This is why St. Paul says neither death, nor.... and all the other things he mentioned, can separate us from Him.
No problem. I didn't think it was strange at all.
Well, I guess you missed the part where I accidentally hit "send" before I was ready and had half a paragraph written and had to go back and add the rest. Well, that's good.
I don't think you need a physical mouth to speak or physical ears to hear once you leave physically this life. The spirit in us is life, and how those under the altar and the elders do things is through God. They are clothed in Him, in His presence. They are in union with Him and so why think they cannot talk or hear or move or pass incense bowls around. 
