Kingdom Advisors equips Christian financial advisors to bring their faith into their practice with the industry-recognized Certified Kingdom Advisor designation. We bring those advisors together with other industry leaders to form a vibrant network. And through that network, we give them the resources, tools, and encouragement they need to serve clients like you, helping you align your values with your financial decisions and investments. To learn more, visit kingdomadvisors.com. Uh Where there is no guidance, a people fall.
But in an abundance of counselors, there is safety. Proverbs 11:14. I am Rob West. At one time, finding someone who shared your Christian values and could give you expert financial guidance was quite a challenge. But today, a nationwide network of Christian financial professionals fills that void.
Sharon Epps joins us today to explain what is a CKA. And then it's onto your calls at 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith in Finance, biblical wisdom for your financial journey.
Well, if you're new to the program, CKA stands for Certified Kingdom Advisor, and there are almost 2,000 of them now across the U.S. and Canada. Sharon Epps is president of Kingdom Advisors, and under her leadership, that number continues to grow. Sharon, great to have you back. Glad to be here.
Kingdom Advisors is, of course, the brainchild of Larry Burkett and Ron Blue, who realized that God's people needed godly advisors to help them be faithful stewards of his resources so they might advance the kingdom. It's all based on members who've earned the designation Certified Kingdom Advisor or CKA, the only industry designation for biblically wise financial advice.
So Sharon, why don't we start today by giving you an opportunity to explain exactly what is a CKA?
Well, simply stated, a CKA is a financial professional who's passionate and qualified to help families and individuals make faith-based financial decisions. It means they've been biblically trained, they've been professionally certified, and they can be financial planners, accountants, investment professionals, insurance professionals, and lawyers. It's the highest credential in financial services for biblical financial advice. And Sharon, you played a key role in the training that undergirds the CKA designation.
So explain what goes into that.
Well, we want you to know that they take 90 hours of study at the college level, finishing with a five-hour proctored exam. And they work through a case study that's a real family, Bob and Debbie, that they go through planning decisions from a biblical worldview. Mm. Yeah, it really is key to not only helping them establish their own personal convictions around financial decision-making through a biblical worldview, but applying that in the competent financial advice that they're giving to clients every day. And Sharon, that 90 hours of study at the college level is rigorous training.
And, you know, we find that financial professionals want to go through this because, well, CKA is highly valued in the industry, widely accepted across all industry firms. They want to establish their own personal convictions. They want to have an intentional process to bring this into their advice and counsel. And of course, they want to serve God's people and help them to be wise and faithful stewards of all that God has entrusted to them. And Sharon, I know one of the things you most enjoy is hearing the stories from advisors who have gone through the CKA educational program and how it's prepared them to bring this into the client relationship.
Do you have a story you could share with us? I've got a couple. One advisor recently wrote to us and said, my practice is no longer just about financial acumen. It's about integrating faith and finance, reshaping how I interact with my clients. This shift towards a more holistic, faith-centered approach is not only a testament to my professional growth, but also to my deepening commitment to my faith.
And then another one said, becoming a CKA has been more than an educational pursuit. It has been a catalyst for spiritual growth and discernment. With each scripture memorized and lesson learned, I've gained clarity on God's calling and purpose for me as a leader and disciple maker. My hope is that this journey will not only enrich my own life, but also serve as a beacon of hope and guidance for those I'm privileged to serve.
Now, wouldn't you want one of these advisors to be your advisor? Absolutely. What an incredible opportunity for these advisors and for the clients that they're serving. You know, one of my favorite things is when I hear from advisors saying, Rob, this changes everything. I'm now going to work differently than I did previously.
Sharon, as we wrap up today, for somebody who's listening and saying, why should I choose a certified kingdom advisor, what would you say?
Well, remember that money is a tool, and we want to sharpen our skills with money using a professional who counsels from the same biblical worldview. We want to be faithful in our finances, and we want to be encouraged by prayer and the word of God. And that's what CKAs do. No doubt about it, folks. If you want to find a certified kingdom advisor in your area, just go to findacka.com.
That's findacka.com. Sharon, thanks for being with us today. Glad to be here. That's Sharon Epps, president of Kingdom Advisors, the parent organization of FaithBuy. Your calls are next: 800-525-7000.
We'll be right back. Are you a financial professional looking to grow your practice while offering advice that aligns with your Christian values? By becoming a Certified Kingdom Advisor, you'll gain the biblical wisdom and professional credibility to serve clients who are seeking faith-based financial guidance. Each year, more than 75,000 people search for a certified kingdom advisor. Join our community and share your expertise with clients looking for someone who shares their faith and values.
Start your journey today by going to kingdomadvisors.com/slash get certified. We are grateful for support from Movement Mortgage, who provides residential home loans and reverse mortgage options in all 50 states. Guided by a mission to love and value people, Movement seeks to help individuals and families make informed financial decisions from buying a home to planning for retirement. More information is available at faithfy.com/slash movement. Movement Mortgage LLC supports equal housing opportunity.
NMLS number 399. For licensing information, visit NMLSconsumeraccess.org. I'm grateful to have you with us today on Faith and Finance. I'm Rob West. Looking forward to taking your calls and questions today, which means the lines are open.
We're ready for you. Whatever those financial issues you're considering in your financial life today, we'd love to hear about them, help you think about them in light of biblical wisdom.
So, the only thing left is for you to call. Here's the number: 800-525-7000. Our team is standing by today, ready to take those calls. At the moment, there are some lines open, so this would be a great time for you to call. Again, that number: 800-525-7000.
To Virginia, we go PV. Thanks for calling. Go ahead. Thank you so much for answering my call. I'm asking a question concerning equity.
I'm getting ready to sell the house. I do have a small mortgage left on the house. What part does this equity? Maybe I need to understand what equity is, first of all. Sure.
Do I carry the equity with me to the next house I'm about to purchase? Or how does the equity part work? Of course, PV, it's a great question.
So, simply speaking, equity is what you walk away with after the sale.
So you take the home sale price. and you subtract the mortgage payoff any realtor commissions. Any closing costs? repairs or concessions And then the remaining number Is what's called your equity or your net proceeds.
So it's the selling price minus the mortgage, minus any real estate commissions or closing costs. That's your equity. And yes, that amount remaining is the check you would receive at the closing table. And you would take the equity with you because you now have a check for that amount, which would allow you to then use it to put as a down payment for your next home. All right, good.
Well, thank you.
Well, age, does that have a barrier in purchasing? Because I'll be 79 this year.
Okay. Is there any kind of barrier to purchasing a new home at age 79? Mm-hmm. There isn't. No, are you going to be getting a mortgage or will you have enough equity to buy the next home with cash?
I would probably be getting a mortgage.
Okay. Yeah.
So because I would imagine, because of the equity you've accumulated in your current home, you'd have a pretty significant down payment. You probably, you know, shouldn't have any trouble. They're just going to want to see that you have income that they can verify, which may be Social Security, it may be other sources. But there's no age barrier to a mortgage so long as they can pull your credit and you have a good credit score and they can document the income that you have that's going to give them confidence that you can make the payment. But as long as you do that, there's no issue with regard to age.
And again, whatever is left, the proceeds or the equity after everything's paid, including the mortgage on your current home, would be available to put into that next home. And if you've lived in this home that you're about to sell for two out of the last five years going back from the selling date, then you could set aside up to two hundred fifty thousand dollars in gains, not the selling price, this is how much it's appreciated. You can set aside up to two hundred fifty thousand of that and you wouldn't have to pay any tax whatsoever. Oh, yes, I've been here 20 years. Good.
Thank you so much. All right. You're very welcome, PB. Call anytime if I can help further. Thanks for being on the program.
To Arkansas. Hi, Cindy. Go ahead. Hi, thank you so much for all you do. I'll try to make it quick.
First of all, I the some of the terms that you use, I feel like I'm a kindergartner.
So even though I'm sixty three, I don't understand a lot about financial stuff. I was married for thirty years. I'm divorced now for ten. During our marriage, we had a home business, a mobile DJ business, which I worked for, but did not receive any income.
So there was no taxes or Social Security or anything coming for me. I do work full-time now. Um My question is, my ex-husband is. Retired military. And he is now receiving his retirement.
I know that there is funds for me. I don't have any plans of getting remarried for as far as retirement goes. I'm like I said, I'm sixty three. I still plan to work for a while because I like working. Yes.
But my question is: whenever it's time for me to retire, How do I go about getting the funds from his retirement? I mean, that feels like I'm taking something from him, but I've heard that that it doesn't hurt him at all. Yes. Yeah, and you're probably talking about Social Security, which is what's most likely available.
So because you were married 30 years, you've been divorced for 10, currently unmarried, you're very likely eligible for divorced spousal social security benefits. And that has nothing, has no bearing on your ex-husband's ability to collect his own Social Security benefits.
So you can claim benefits based on his. His record through the Social Security Administration, so long as you were married at least 10 years, which you were, you're currently unmarried, you're 62 or older, and your own benefit would be smaller than the spousal benefit, which it likely would be if you even have one at all, given the fact that you were working in the business and not getting paid.
So, what that would mean is that if you don't have your own work record, which means you'd have to have at least 10 quarters of paying into Social Security in order to have any benefit on your own, then you would be better off taking the spousal benefit and you would be able to get up to 50% of his full retirement age benefit. And this does not reduce his benefit whatsoever. He doesn't need to approve it. He may not even know you're getting it. and doesn't need to.
Now, you're going to want to wait until your full retirement age, if at all possible, which is probably going to be around 67 years old. If you want to be able to get the full amount, and again, the full amount, the most you can get is 50% of his full retirement age benefit. But if you take it before 67, it's going to be reduced below the maximum you can earn, which is that 50%.
So, for instance, if you took it at age 62, you might only get 30% or something around there versus waiting until 67 and getting the full 50%. With regard to the military pension, those are completely different rules. Military retirement is treated often as a marital asset, not an automatic spousal benefit.
So, you'd only receive part of it if it was awarded in a divorce decree. There's not an automatic right there. But give me your thoughts on all that. Um well You know, I am a Christian, and so I didn't want to do anything that would hurt him. We did not go through.
Any kind of Format to where you get this, we get this, you know, split this up or anything like that. We didn't talk about any kind of retirement or anything like that. I was trying to be the. The most um helpful towards him because he was going through a really hard time. during the divorce.
And so I mean, I do plan on working at least to sixty seven. I do have some work history, but I know like right now, if I was going to retire, I think Social Security said I would get late. $800 a month, which you can't live off that. Sure, sure. Yeah, exactly right.
So I think the key is if you can wait as long as possible to take that, that's going to be helpful, you know, at least until full retirement age. And if you didn't have a divorce decree, and you may want to check with an attorney on this, you likely would not have been awarded anything.
Now, you could check with the Defense Finance and Accounting Service and see if there's any kind of payments that you're eligible for, but that would likely come through a divorce decree, which it doesn't sound like you have. I hope that's helpful. Thanks for calling. We'll be right back. Have you ever started a budget only to watch it fall apart a few weeks later?
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Since 1994, Praxis has offered investment products designed to meet practical needs for everyday investors seeking to steward their assets consistent with their desire to promote positive social and environmental impacts. Praxis aims to bring a faith-based approach to ETFs, mutual funds, multifund portfolio solutions, and money market accounts, reflecting their 500-year-old Anabaptist Christian faith tradition. More information is available at PraxisInvest.com. You know, here on this program each day, we want to help you see money as a tool to accomplish God's purposes, recognizing money is a good gift. We should use it to enjoy and provide.
We also need to understand that the use of money is highly spiritual. There's a connection between how we handle money and our hearts. Remember, Jesus said, Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. You know, when he called out the widow and celebrated her giving out of her poverty, versus the Pharisees that were giving far more, that he really scolded. You know, I think what we were seeing there is that the way we handle money has a way of illuminating what we truly treasure.
And that means that our spending tells a story. It reflects our values. And the question is: what story is it telling? You know, does the way I'm handling money reflect what I want to be most important to me? And if not, what changes do I need to make?
Well, each day on this program, we want to help you understand the counsel of scripture as it relates to managing God's money, but also in doing so, help you answer those very practical questions that you have going on in your financial life.
So, if there's something you're wrestling with, call right now, 800-525-7000. Let's go to Illinois. Hi, Mark. Go ahead. Hi.
I appreciate all the information that you guys do. Sure, thank you. But my mom has passed away. And we are closing on the house. My portion of that.
is going to be right roughly seventy thousand dollars. Uh I'm fifty-nine. I plan on retiring at sixty two. I've already got a previous IRA that I transferred from a plant that I worked at that closed. And um They give they've retired, they paid me my retirement in cash and started that, but I don't know.
I can only add what, eight thousand dollars a year into that one But I don't know what would be the best option to do with the rest of the seventy thousand Yeah, yeah. Uh do you have um a uh an emergency fund? Yes. I mean, I've got a savings account that You know, pretty much services that.
Okay, and do you have at least three to six months' expenses in there? Yes. Okay, and do you have any data to speak of? No. I mean, vehicles are paid and houses are paid and everything.
I don't have much. Yeah, so you would be able to put for 2026, I mean, going back to 2025, you could put in $8,000 over age 50. You could also turn around if you haven't filed your 2025 return, most people haven't at this point.
So you could put eight in. And if you're married, you could put that in twice, you and your wife. And then you could turn around and do the 2026 contribution as well, which would be over age 50, $8,600.
So it's $7,500 for 2026 for an individual. And then you can put in an additional $1,100 over the age of 50.
So, you could plow all that into an IRA and then, whatever's left, so you know, are you married?
Okay. Okay, so you could do this for your IRA and espousal IRA.
So that'd be 16,000 between the two of you. And if you did 8,600 times 2, that's 17,200.
So between the two of you, you could put in close to 20 grand. if you fund an IRA for 2025 and 2026. And then that would leave I think you said you were getting about seventy thousand, so that would leave you a little over fifty thousand. And with that, you could just go ahead and invest that in a taxable account. You could reach out to a certified kingdom advisor at findacka.com to manage this for you.
You could do it yourself. You could use the mutual fund strategy offered by our friends at soundmindinvesting.org that you could do yourself. Just open an account at Fidelity or Schwab, and you'd buy some no-load mutual funds or exchange-traded funds, and they could guide you on which ones. Or you could use like a robo-advisor that would basically just build a portfolio that's very low-cost using indexes, which are basically just ways to capture the broad moves of the market. But you'd have a mix of stocks and bonds that's appropriate for somebody who's 60 years old.
It'd probably be about a 50-50 portfolio where 50% is kind of following the overall bond market and 50% is following the broad stock market with some exposure both domestically and international.
So I think that would be the way to go. And that way you'd be able to take this money, get some of it into IRAs.
So it's growing tax deferred or even tax free in a Roth. And then the rest of it, fifty thousand, would be growing on a taxable basis.
So every time you sell an investment for a profit, you'd have to pay a capital gain, but it would still be growing. And I think that could work really well for you. Is there is that would that be considered an inheritance? And in twenty six Was there some changes to the inheritance tax or No, there is no inheritance tax.
So any tax that would have been due would have been paid by her estate, but estate taxes don't kick in until north of $15 million.
So you'll be fine there.
So yeah, you can take that. There's no federal inheritance tax, so you'd be able to plow all that right into some investments. Great. That sounds great. All right.
Thanks for your call today. We appreciate you being on the program. Tia's in Georgia. Go right ahead. Hey, it's so nice to talk to you.
I love listening to your show.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate it. I have a question. I've got into a situation. Um I'm out of work. On short-term disability, but that's been Stopped for medical reasons, and they're trying to get all the medical stuff situated.
I've gone through all my savings. And Oh, well and I have a thirty thousand dollar whole life policies. And I was wondering. Um if I could take a loan against it or something to have some income coming in. Yeah.
I am so sorry to hear about your situation here, Tia.
So you said you've gone through your savings. You're on short-term disability. Are you going to be able to go back to work? I just had surgery two weeks ago and um I'm supposed to go back. In April or May, based on physical therapy and on what the doctor's saying.
But I got a note saying, I mean, a letter saying that the FMLA runs out.
So I'm not even sure if I'm going to have a job. Oh boy. Yeah, I am so sorry. All right, let's do this. Uh, perhaps that would be a resource, that whole life policy, but I want to get you with one of our certified Christian financial counselors just to look at everything you've got and help you chart out a plan here.
We're going to pay for it, there won't be any cost to you. This person can come alongside you, encourage you, pray with you, but help you work out a plan and a path forward. Listen, folks, if you're listening to Tia right now and you'd like to help her navigate this financially, we can help make that available. Let our team know. I know so often when we have folks in a desperate situation, our Faith and Finance community is amazing and they step up and say, I want to help.
Count me in. And we can actually use our friends at Helping Hands to verify the need and then provide coordination on getting the gifts to the right places to help her out.
So, Tia, stay on the line. We'll get you connected with one of our certified Christian financial counselors. Big thanks to Sandy, Devin, Patty, everybody here at Faith Fi, including Taylor and the team. We'll see you next time. God bless you.
Bye-bye. Faith in Finance is provided by FaithFi and listeners like you.
