The Duty of a Christian Investor

Micah 6-8 reads, What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

I am Rob West. As Christians, we have certain duties to be obedient, generous, and always honest, to be like Christ and to do His will. How does that extend to our investing? I'll talk about that today with Robert Netzle. Then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Well, our guest today is Robert Netzle, CEO of Inspire Investing, an underwriter of this program, and where they're always focused on investing that glorifies God. Robert, delighted to have you back on the program. Always a pleasure.

Thanks, Rob. Robert, most Christians know they have a duty to God in their daily life, but I'm not sure that's always on our mind when we choose where to put our money to work. So I'd love for you to share your convictions as it relates to the duties you believe you have as a Christian investor. Yeah, you know, we get that question a lot when people start opening their eyes to the idea that every dollar belongs to God. And we ask the question, you know, what does God want me to do with his dollars, right? And the dollars that are in our investment accounts.

What are we supposed to do with that money? And I think the first the first place to go, of course, is the Bible. And oftentimes people turn to the parable of talents. Familiar with the story. There's a master and he has three servants and gives them each certain amount of money goes away on a trip and rewards two of them and punishes the third. The two that got the reward, you know, made a made a profit on that investment.

The third was scared, hit in the ground and make any money. So the sort of natural assumption is, well, we just need to make as much money as possible with the given risk that we're comfortable taking. And certainly there's an element of truth to that.

Want to make wise investment decisions that, you know, hopefully make that money grow so you can have more ability to give generously and do things and be a blessing rather than making foolish decisions and losing money. But is that really it? You know, there definitely is more to the story than that. Jesus also told a parable and really kind of criticized the Pharisees at a point where he compared them to cups that had been washed on the outside, but not on the inside inside. They were all filthy and dirty and said, you know, you wash the outside of the cup, you look so good on the outside, your religious deeds, but inside it's just, you know, disgusting. And who would want to drink from that cup? And similarly, when we look at a portfolio, the performance and the risk adjusted returns are all the external perspective of financial management.

And that's the outside of the cup. But what's inside that portfolio? What kind of companies are you actually putting God's money into? Are they manufacturing abortion drugs? Are they selling pornography?

Are they advancing, you know, unbiblical agendas in the society? And what are they actually doing? And that's that inside of the cup idea inside the portfolio. What are these these stocks and bonds that you're investing in? What are they doing to turn a profit that is your profit? What are you earning money from?

What companies are you owning? That's a really important question. And just like we don't want to be hypocrites in our life where, you know, it looks good on the outside, but inside we're, you know, total hypocrites. We also want to make sure that the things that we care about, things that God cares about are reflected inside of our portfolio, not just the financial returns.

Yeah, that's helpful. And the exciting thing is that this can actually be done now. If your conviction is to avoid companies that don't align with your Christian values, you can do that. If you want to embrace companies that are having a kingdom outcome or a social impact in the world, you can do that. Or as you've taught us on many prior broadcasts, you can actually engage and let your values be known to shareholder relations, even to corporate executives. It's really a new day, Robert, isn't it, in terms of the opportunities for folks who want faith based investment?

Certainly is. There's more and more opportunities for people to align their values, physical values with the decisions they're making in their investment portfolios. Tools like InspireInsight.com make it really easy for you to learn what's inside your portfolio, type a ticker symbol in and see all the good, bad and the ugly that a certain company or mutual fund or ETF is invested in.

So you can make informed decisions based on what convictions God has given you through His word and through His Spirit's leading to honor Him as much as possible for what He's given you. Yeah, that's really helpful. When we come back, we'll continue to unpack this biblically. Also, we'll ask Robert from some examples for companies that may not align with your values in terms of what they're doing with their corporate profits or their primary business activities. We'll also talk about how you can apply this in your own investments. Robert Netzle, CEO of Inspire Investing, with us today. Much more to come just around the corner than it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000. Stay with us.

We'll be right back. Thanks for joining us today on MoneyWise Live. Joining me in this segment of the broadcast, our good friend Robert Netzle, CEO of Inspire Investing and underwriter of this program. Robert, just before the break, you were talking about our role as an investor, sharing some of your own convictions about how you approach investing.

And you were sharing about the parable that Jesus shared in Matthew 23, 25 through 28, talking about our cups and perhaps is there a difference between the outside of our cup looking good and the inside of our cup? Well, not so good, making the connection between our investments that perhaps are misaligned with our Christian values. This is essentially calling Christians to a higher calling with their investments, isn't it?

It is. We press on towards that higher calling in every area of life, that upper calling of Jesus Christ. It is easier said than done. Oftentimes, it's easy to say, hey, I'm just going to align my investments with things that I care about and make sure that I'm glorifying God with my investments. But what if you're in a 401k plan that has limited investment choices, right? It's often a common challenge when people open up the menu on their 401k plan, they see a certain family of mutual funds in there, and then they go to inspireinsight.com.

They type in that ticker symbol and then their jaw hits the floor because these mutual funds are just full of things that make their stomachs turn, right? Things that they don't want to put their money in. But what kind of options do you have, right?

Your employer has chosen those funds for you and you can't just change them yourself, right? There's a number of these considerations and it's a far broader topic than we can discuss today. But the point is that we really want to, we must really do all we can to glorify God, right?

First Corinthians 10 31, whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God. And there are tools, there are professionals, certified kingdom advisors, you know, who have been trained and biblically responsible, faith based investing. And those professionals can help guide you through these really common challenges. And there are solutions available that, you know, you may not be aware of that these professionals like those that inspire advisors, our own firm can help investors with.

Yeah, that's exactly right. We'll get into some of those specific solutions in a moment. Robert, first, give us some examples of investments in companies that honor God as opposed to those that perhaps don't, that are misaligned with the values of believers. Yeah, one of the first ones that comes to mind I'm getting asked about a lot right now is Pfizer for kind of obvious reasons is because of their involvement in vaccines. And there's obviously many different opinions and, you know, around that whole topic.

And so it's just we get asked a lot about this particular company and and some others in that in that group. But when you dig deeper, just below the whole kind of social debate surrounding vaccines, you realize there's also issues like embryonic tissue being used in ongoing testing and drug development for lots of their products, lots of their drugs and embryonic tissue, of course, as a result of an abortion. And that's deeply troubling to many believers that a company would use unborn children's tissue in that manner.

Right. It's a very sensitive topic and it's incredibly important to look into. They also are manufacturers of abortion drugs as a drug, misoprostol. They're one of the largest manufacturers, if not the largest manufacturer of this drug. It is step one of two in the one to combination of the abortion pill regimen. Misoprostol is step one.

And mythopristone is step two. And the vast majority of medical abortions are implemented using those two drugs. And Pfizer is a major manufacturer. And, you know, Pfizer, it's a big company. If you own index funds from any of the big secular companies like a BlackRock or Fidelity or Vanguard or American Funds, et cetera, you probably own shares of Pfizer. If you own, you know, a target date fund in your 401k, you probably own shares of Pfizer. And, you know, so that's one company that, again, has been brought up a lot in recent conversations and there's a lot to learn there.

You can dig into the details on aspireinsight.com really easily. An example that is more a positive example would be Tyson Foods. Tyson Foods, many believers are familiar with, but many don't know that they have a really strong Christian background. Their founder is a strong man of faith. And in their core values, they have phrases like we strive to honor God in everything we do. And we endeavor to be a faith friendly company.

You can look it up on their website. Tyson Foods, huge. I think they provide all the chicken for McDonald's sandwiches. I mean, it's a big company and they've got this solid foundation of faith, Christian faith specifically. They've given funds for Christian education. They've partnered with seminaries. They have over 100 corporate chaplains that operate in over 22 states ministering to their employees. So a ton of great stuff that Tyson Foods is involved with. However, I will have this sidebar here that just recently they have signed on to the Business Coalition to Support the Equality Act.

Which many listeners may understand is a giant threat to religious freedom, rolls back religious freedoms, and essentially opens up religious employees to harassment and discrimination, et cetera, for their views on marriage and sexuality. So Tyson Foods is a prime example of a company that's got great bones, so to speak. But when it gets fleshed out, they really need to hear from Christian investors and their customers to encourage them to hold the line and not to be influenced to veer off that strong foundation that's resulted in a very strong company, a great company, by unbiblical ideologies. So that's an example of a great company, but it needs our help.

It needs our input. Well, and that's a key point, because we can avoid companies if we have a conviction to do so. We can embrace other companies, like the example you just gave, because they're aligned with promoting Christian values.

But engaging is that third bucket. As an owner of a company, Robert, you have the right, you have the duty, I'll say, to let corporate management and let investor relations know how you believe they should be operating, if in fact they're making decisions you disagree with, right? Yeah, and that's something that we're really passionate about, Inspire Investing, and are increasingly involved with. And we're seeing a real groundswell from the Christian investor, faith-based investor community that we're kind of realizing, I guess, that we have this opportunity, that we, as shareholders, that we can talk to investor relations at a company, and they will actually listen to us.

And we can talk about things like their support of Planned Parenthood through their corporate philanthropy, or their support of an equality act bill, or something of that nature that is detrimental to people of faith. There's a lot of different areas that we can engage companies with. And we find that more often than not, companies are willing to listen, and sometimes they're even changing their policies. And by God's grace, we've discussed many of those success stories on this show with you. And God's blessing us with more, it seems, every year, as more and more investors are picking up the phones and getting their emails going, and just letting the voice of Christian investors be heard.

Yeah, that's really helpful. Well, Robert, you're always an encouragement when you stop by. Help us understand what's really going on out there, and the great developments taking place in faith-based investing. Thanks for stopping by. My pleasure.

Thanks, Rob. You can learn more at inspireinsight.com to find out what's really going on inside your portfolio. It's absolutely free, and it's from Inspire Investing. Robert Netzle has been our guest today.

Again, you can learn more at inspireinvesting.com. We'll be back with much more and your calls at 800-525-7000. Just around the corner.

Stay with us. It's delighted to have you along with us today on MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West, your host, taking your calls and questions in just a moment. We've got some lines open, perhaps one for you. 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. Hey, if you haven't checked your inbox yet, our MoneyWise Weekly Wisdom email goes out every Thursday. It went out this morning about 1030. I share some thoughts on investing in the midst of inflation, otherwise known as the silent killer of wealth. We also share with you some of our recommended reads, a great article from the National Christian Foundation on three questions for a values-based impact-driven inheritance.

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Just create a free account and we'll be sure you get it. All right, let's head to the phones. We've got some lines open. 800-525-7000. We're going to begin today.

Chicago, Illinois. Hi, Joseph. Thank you for calling. How can I help you? Hi. Yeah, I had a question.

Basically, I'm pretty new in the States and I'm hoping to very soon purchase a car and then I'd like to start getting some money down for a house. And I think about tips and that. I don't have a budget, but I'll try to keep within my means. But then from there, there isn't a lot left over. Yes.

So basically, but if you have any good tips. Yeah, I'd be delighted to weigh in on that. I appreciate that question very much. Did you say you do have a budget or you do not? I don't. I don't really. I try to work within what I get monthly or weekly in a bi-monthly paycheck. And I try to work with that.

Yeah, very good. Well, a budget really is going to be key, Joseph, for you to get started. We need to take this kind of working knowledge you have of your income and expenses and get really specific about it so that we can get it down on paper. Or if you'd rather work digitally, you could use the MoneyWise app and I'd be delighted to view a six-month pro subscription.

I'll tell you how you can get that when we're finished here. But essentially, what we want to do is capture all of your expenses so you can create a plan that says all of your fixed expenses, those things you get a bill for, plus your discretionary spending, those things that happen every month that you don't necessarily get a bill for, food purchases and clothing and entertainment, things like that, are all captured in one place. And then we can actually match that up not only against your income for the month, but even by paycheck so that you can get very specific to know how you're going to handle the flow of money in and out. And the idea is to make sure, and this is simple, but it's harder to do than it sounds, to make sure you're living below your means, which just simply means you have margins. So I would say let's give first and then let's build in the rest of your monthly budget. Let's make sure there's something left over at the end so we can begin pursuing some of your goals.

You mentioned a few of them. I would say if you don't have an emergency fund, that would come first. So I would say let's save up to $1,500.

If you have any credit card debt, let's go after that. If you don't, let's get that up to at least three months expenses for the unexpected. Once that's in place, then we're going to redirect that margin over to the car purchase because that's probably more urgent.

I would imagine making sure you have reliable transportation to get to and from work. And then once we do that, you can start working on that down payment on a house. The goal for that would be 20 percent of the purchase price. So I think the key is having that spending plan. And then once you get it, you have some confidence in it and it balances, meaning it's got everything reflected, even some of those non-recurring items, those things that don't happen. But every few months or once a quarter, then we've got to have a system to control the flow of money in and out. That could be a physical envelope system like our good friend Larry Burkett, the former host of this program, talked about. Or we could do a modern digital version of that, again, with the MoneyWise app. But the key is that you're actually funding those envelopes so that you know what's left over in each category and you don't spend beyond that.

So that's putting the control system in place. Beyond that, I think it's really just recognizing and beginning to acquaint yourself with God's principles of handling money, which begins with the recognition, Joseph, that God owns it all. And you're a steward, as am I, of God's resources and that money is a tool to accomplish his purposes. And that one of the ways we free ourselves from the grip that money can have over us is to hold it loosely, which means we want to give systematically and regularly. And when we put all of that under the Lordship of Christ and we live within our means and we avoid debt and we have some margin and we set long-term goals, we're going to put ourselves in a position to experience, I think, God's best at that point and not allow the grip of money or materialism that our culture promotes so heavily to get a hold of us.

Tell me what questions, though, or thoughts you have on all of that. I was thinking basically the budgeting system sounds very good, but somehow perhaps that is the life of the budget. Every month I seem to be going over and then I have to, every time I get a paycheck I go over. Today I paid my rent and that basically finished everything I got from the bimonthly. And then I have to also take, I've had to use my savings a little bit. I have a little bit saved up and then I have to use that to shift it around, you know, between accounts. I also, I've got two credit cards. I've got a store credit card for Walgreens and then I've got a bank one for the Bank of America.

I try to pop them up so they don't go down too much because I was told that. Because another thing is I'm also trying to increase my credit rating to, so then basically then I'd be more of an asset and a liability if I need to get a car loan or something. Sure, yeah, no, and I can certainly understand that, but I think the key is making sure that you only use those for budgeted items.

You pay them off every month and you being an on-time payer with zero balances at the end of every month will do everything you need to do to build your credit. And if you can't pay them off, I'd cut them up and stop using them. Let's do this. You hold the line. I think you'd benefit from one of our MoneyWise coaches.

So I'm going to give you a free six-month pro subscription to the MoneyWise app and we'll get you connected with a coach who can help you set up that budget, give you some good ideas on how to cut back so that everything balances and you can pursue those goals. And then check in with us along the way, Joseph. Hold the line. We'll get your information.

800-525-7000. We've got some lines open. We'd love to hear from you. Hey, thanks for joining us today on MoneyWise Live.

This is where God's word intersects with your financial decisions and choices. I'm Rob West, your host. We've got some lines open.

300-525-7000. Hey, MoneyWise Live and MoneyWise Media is a listener-supported, not-for-profit ministry. We do what we do because of your generous support. We'd love to count on you as a part of our MoneyWise family. If you'd like to give a gift, be one of our financial partners, we'd sure appreciate it. You can head over to our website, MoneyWise.org. You can click the donate button. You'll find a way to give online over the phone through a toll-free number or by check, whichever you prefer. Again, becoming a financial partner helps us to share God's principles of financial management with you and literally millions of others across the country. We'd love your support. Again, MoneyWise.org. Just click donate and thank you in advance. All right, heading back to the phones. Elizabeth is in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. WMBW, go right ahead.

Hi. My mother, she's been really struggling financially and she's starting to depend on my adult brother to help pay her bills and whatnot, but he's trying to move out on his own, but she's really pushing back because he pays part of her rent. So my husband and I have been thinking about how we can help her financially, but we also don't want to enable her making bad financial decisions. So do you have any wisdom on how to help family in that situation? I do, and I appreciate you wanting to do this in a way that actually helps provide a solution because I know at the end of the day you all want to be a blessing to your mom, want to help her out, but at the same time don't want to do anything that's just going to continue to perpetuate the same behavior and not allow her to get on a solid financial footing.

Clearly, Scripture would support you coming in and providing some assistance for parents, but I think doing it in a way that's wise would certainly be appropriate. A couple of things. I think number one is, have you had this conversation with her? Is this kind of out there in the open, and have you talked about some of her struggles before? About a year ago, my husband and I sat down with her and came up with a budget for her to help her get out of debt, and we checked in with her about a month ago, and she never really followed the budget. I don't know if her debt has gotten worse, but it certainly hasn't gotten better. And we haven't told her that we were wanting to give her assistance, but we're still praying about it, you know?

Sure, sure. Well, I think the key is to make sure that the assistance is really connected to activities that ultimately are going to be positive for her. So clearly she needs a spending plan, and it may take your brother moving out and her really finding herself in a difficult spot financially to get serious about this, because if she doesn't have to and her personality is such and tendency is such that she overspends regularly, being in a situation where somebody's helping to shoulder those obligations is going to take the pressure off.

So clearly if he gives her a timeline that says, Mom, I'm moving out in six months, so we've got to get a plan between now and then because you're going to be in a real difficult spot unless we get things moving in that direction. And then you perhaps, if that's the way the Lord leads you and your husband, stepping in and saying, Listen, we'd like to sit down and talk about how we can help, but we want to do it in a way that's ultimately in your best interest, is going to lead you toward being more financially secure. And in order to do that, we need to involve either yourselves or perhaps even better, a third party, one of our coaches who could walk alongside with her to provide that accountability. So you all aren't having to do that, you're able to provide the assistance, but it's predicated on her being willing to work with a coach, follow the plan, and really move in the direction of getting financially healthy. It could also be that your assistance is predicated on her doing her part. So for instance, if she does have credit card debt, she's got to put it in a credit counseling program and maybe you'll match 50-50 the payment every month. So as long as she's willing to put up half of it, you're willing to put up half.

It might be predicated on her stopping and eliminating credit cards altogether. There may need to be weekly accountability checks on progress. If you do loan money or come up with an agreement on how you're going to help, I would always recommend putting that in writing, even though it might be very clearly discussed verbally. We have a tendency not to remember things quite the way somebody else did when we get six months down the road, and so making sure all that's spelled out in writing I think would be really key. So I think the hallmarks of my advice would be, number one, your brother establishes a clear timeline on when he's moving out so that she knows things have to change. Number two, involving a third party for accountability. Number three, making sure that your assistance is offset by her doing certain things. Either doing her part, following the budget, or matching what you're doing.

And then number four, making sure everything's clearly agreed upon and in writing. Does all that make sense? Yes, yes, and that's very, very helpful. Thank you. Good, you're welcome. Well, our coaches would be happy to help you.

If you head to our website, click on the MoneyWise community, you'll see Connect with a Coach, and they'd be delighted to get involved and perhaps provide some of this third party accountability working with you, your husband, and your mom to move you all in the right direction. And we appreciate your call today very much. By the way, Elizabeth, stay on the line. I want to send you a copy of Howard Dayton's book, Your Money Counts.

Perhaps you give that to her as a gift at the outset of this, which will articulate some of these biblical principles related to money that I think are so important. We appreciate your call today. To Illinois, hi Jasmine, thank you for calling.

How can I help? Hi, how are you? Doing great. I would like to preface, actually I am too. I'm 73 and a half. I'm going to preface my question with I am out of debt.

I don't owe anything. I'm a widow. I'm still working part-time. And I'm scared of the stock market and trying to get what's going on out there.

I'm very, I could say scared and comfortable. I have a family member who has taken, talked me into a number of years of putting some money in the stock market. They know what they're doing.

One part of what they get is not good and the other one is doing very well. I'm just at this age, I have a smile already. They don't know how well you're getting ready to mature.

I just don't, I'm trying to listen to the family member. They want me, I should have years ago they said done a bit more investing but I didn't and here I am. I have a sizable amount of money in the bank and so forth. So what would you like to tell me?

Yeah, well I appreciate that background Jasmine. And I think my first question would just be what do you have in liquid assets? And then what do you currently have invested if anything? $200,000, no $100,000. I have an IRA with $24,000. I have another one with $37,000. I have in the market I think there's $24,000.

Which couple is it? Could I try to be frugal? And then the rest of it is liquid. The house is paid off, the car is paid off, I don't owe no bills. Okay, very good. Well let's do this. I've got to hit a break but this gives me a lot of great background information. I certainly understand where you're coming from. What I want to try to help you do is think about the various buckets of money that you have and think about how to orient those both in terms of liquid reserves that you would fall back on that needs to be protected for emergencies and that which might be more long term.

I also want to understand what income you need. We'll do that right on the other side of this break. Stay with us. Thanks for joining us today on MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West, your host.

We're thrilled you're along with us today as we apply God's truth to your financial decisions and choices. Jasmine, we were talking to Jasmine just before the break in Illinois. She's in her mid-70s. She's a little nervous about this stock market, understandably so, with the choppiness. We had another 600-point loss on the Dow Jones today. So we certainly are in more of a volatile environment, you could say, after a long number of years where the stock market was essentially going straight up. We've had a very raging bull market the last couple of years in particular, certainly the last decade before that. But what do you do now?

If you've kind of been on the sideline, and Jasmine, I understand that you're nervous, but you also want to be a good steward. You want this money to be working for you. You've got, I think, roughly all in about $200,000 broken up between some money in the market, about $65,000 or so in some IRAs that I guess have been in CDs or something very conservative without much yield. And then you've got some money in savings that's more of your emergency reserve. Wondering how to handle that in light of this market. I also know you're working part-time and earning Social Security. So I would say the key for you at this point is, obviously, you'll work as long as you can. The goal would be that for any portion of this money that you don't want to have in emergency reserves, so somewhere between 6 and 12 months, I would keep in this stage of life in emergency reserves. So that would be whatever your monthly expenses are times 6 or times 12, somewhere in that range. We'd want to keep that in a savings account. FDIC insured, protected, not earning much money, but that's okay.

We want it safe. And then the rest of it, we could actually then begin to grow. And the idea would be that it grow as long as it can while you're still working so that when you are not able to work or the Lord redirects you, maybe we have at that point, in addition to your 6 to 12 months of savings, you've got maybe another couple hundred thousand dollars that could be converted to an income stream.

I would typically use 4% as a rate of return on that in terms of how much you should expect to be able to pull out of an account and not ever see it decline over the long term. That would be $8,000 a year. So that $8,000 plus your Social Security might be what you live on. But what do you do with that portion that's not in your emergency fund? I think what would give you some peace of mind is to know that you have somebody making those decisions for you. Now, I know you have folks in your life that do this and do this quite well, but you may say, you know what, I'd be better off, or it would, I think, serve me well not to have a family member making that decision, and that would be perfectly appropriate. And if that was the case, I would say connect with a certified kingdom advisor there in Illinois. You could go to our website, MoneyWise.org, click Find a CKA.

I'd interview two or three, and then you'd be looking for somebody that could then take on the responsibility of making the buying and selling decisions on a very conservative basis, recognizing your age, but also seeing if they can grow this money, again, over the longer term. Because if the Lord tarries and you're in good health, you might need this money to last for a couple of decades or more. And so that's why we want it to continue to grow as long as it can. But tell me what questions you have on that. Well, I don't understand some of the terminology you use. What did you mean? I understand the investor referring to an investor, a line to earn. I don't understand that. I don't have the terminology knowledge.

Yeah, let me go back a second. I appreciate that. So all I'm saying is if you say, OK, I've got $200,000 and I've got two IRAs and I've got another maybe taxable account where I've got some market investments, and then I've got some money in savings, altogether it's $200,000. I think the goal for you while you're working is to say, I want to keep between six and 12 months' worth of expenses. So if you're spending $2,000 a month, you want to keep somewhere between $12,000 and $24,000 liquid in savings, in a savings account that's protected. And then the rest of it, I think you could conceivably begin to move it into the stock market, but having an investor, a professional investment advisor, making those buying and selling decisions for you, where they have a small portion of stocks, maybe a larger portion of bonds or what are called fixed income type investments, more stable that provide an income. And the goal would be to try to grow that portion of your wealth so that when you stop working, because you want to or have to, that that could then be converted to an income stream, meaning you would start to draw out a certain amount every month to replace the income that you're no longer receiving because you're not working part time. Tell me if that makes sense.

It does. And what are the names of some of the things you just described? What are they? Well, they would be an investment portfolio that's very well diversified. So I wouldn't be able to give you the names of the individual investments. That would be up to the investment advisor to select those for you, the person making those decisions.

But it would be based on your goals. And so he or she might say, OK, Jasmine, let's put 30 percent of this money in stocks. And they would pick the mutual funds that are is just basically a basket of stocks, individual companies that you'd be invested in. And then we're going to put 60 percent in bonds and we're going to do government bonds and corporate bonds, short term and medium term. And they would build that portion of the portfolio. But the goal is that you'd be have a conservative portfolio, which just means it's less volatile, more stable. And the idea would be to grow it modestly over time. That's not in a quarter or a year.

That's over five or 10 years. So I think the next step for you is to visit with a certified kingdom advisor. This is an investment professional who's been trained and met high standards in delivering professional biblical financial advice. And if you're on the Web, just go to our Web site, MoneyWise.org, click Find a CKA.

You can search by your zip code or city state. I'd interview two or three. And I think they can begin to explain a little bit more about how you might proceed from here.

And I think that would at least give you the peace of mind to know that a professional who's trained in God's word and in professional financial advice is helping you put a plan together to make sure you have the money you need in reserves, in emergency savings, to fall back on in the short term and that the rest of it is growing for the longer term so that you've got something that can generate an income for you when you stop working. I hope that helps you. We appreciate you calling so much. And I know there's a lot of information there. So if we can help you further, give us a call back.

And thank you so much to Cortez, Colorado. Hi, Joe. Thank you for your patience. How can I help you? Hi.

Thanks for taking my call. Sure. I'm on the finance team at my church. We have some extra money and we are considering investing it. We want to be good stewards with it and do the right thing. And we sure could use some advice on that.

You know, I appreciate that question, Joe. And I've been in that seat many times and I'm just not a big fan of investing church resources. I don't think, at least my perspective is, we should be taking risk with money given to the church for the purposes of ministry. So what I would prefer you to do is to establish a philosophy for how much you want for church cash reserves. I think that's probably for most churches going to be somewhere between six and months worth of expenses, no more than twelve.

I think that would be excessive. And that's in addition to any required reserves from your mortgage, from your lender and so forth. But I think anything beyond that, unless we're talking about an endowment or something that can't be used, ought to be really considered to be used for ministry. That was the purpose for which it was given and taking that and putting it in the stock market to try to make a bigger return on that money, I just don't think is really in line with the purpose for which the money was given. So if it was me, I wouldn't be looking to invest it in the market. I would be saying, what has God called us to do with this money?

Where is he leading our church fellowship and how can we get this into circulation in God's economy and building up the body and taking the good news of Jesus to the ends of the earth and all the other things that we're called to do. So apart from church reserves, which certainly wouldn't be invested, that would be in a stable account. I'm just not a big fan of you all putting this at the risk of the market. That's just me. It doesn't mean that's the right answer. That's just my perspective.

But give me your thoughts. Yes, we weren't really thinking about the stock market so much, but obviously interest-bearing accounts right now are earning very little. So I guess that would be really our only option.

Yeah, unfortunately it is. I mean, you obviously could put it in savings accounts and money market, things like that. I'd probably check with some of the institutions that are accustomed to working with churches in particular. So the ECCU, the Evangelical Christian Credit Union, Thrivent would be one. I think there's a number of great institutions out there.

Guidestone would be another where they're used to working with church institutions in particular. But I think unfortunately there's not going to be many options that are very compelling these days, I'm sorry to say. We appreciate your call today. All the best as you sort through that.

We're going to finish today in Illinois. Karen, just have about a minute left. How can I help you? Yeah, hi.

Thanks for taking my call. My father, who was 85, just passed away within the past month. He had been paying for a long term care insurance policy for him and my mother for almost 20 years. Basically, they put in what, almost $20,000 each of them. And now, of course, he passes and he has never used it. So I'm assuming it just goes away.

I did not find out the details. Now we're just wondering, he left my mother financially stable if we should continue paying the thousand dollar a year premium on her. Considering she's 78 and pretty healthy right now.

Yeah. You know, I think to be able to offset that risk for a thousand dollars a year, what could likely be the most likely thing that could come into play that would erode her assets being long term care, 70% of those 65 years and older will need it for somewhere between 18 months and three years. I think that's a worthy expense to help shoulder some of that risk in the future, even if that's in home care.

It doesn't have to be a nursing home. So I would continue to do it if there's money there to do it. We appreciate your call, Karen. Stay on the line. We'll talk more out the air.

MoneyWise Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media. That's going to do it for us today. Come back and join us tomorrow. I'll see you then. Bye bye.