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Hi, I'm Rob West. There's no question that every church could benefit by having a stewardship ministry, and not just the church itself, but the individual members as well. Leo Sabo joins us today with instructions for starting one. Then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.
That's 800-525-7000. This is faith and finance, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Well, it's a pleasure to welcome back our friend Leo Sabo. He's president of the Christian Stewardship Network and a faith and finance contributor. He also knows a thing or two about starting a stewardship ministry, and Leo, it's great to have you with us. Thanks, Rob.
It's always good to be with you. Hey, Leo, before we dive into the how-to, let's start with why it's important for churches to have stewardship ministries in the first place. Yeah. Well, first of all, it's in God's Word. There's biblical references to money and possessions all over the Bible, so it's something that God wants us to know, and it's something that we should be discipling our people around, because it is a major part of our lives. Making money, spending money is part of it. So it's important that we teach what God says about that so that people can both accomplish their calling and purpose and use money as a tool to do that.
That's well said. So I know you have five practical steps for setting up a stewardship ministry as a layperson. Let's dive in. Where do we start? Well, first, get leadership buy-in. It's important that you share a vision of how the ministry will impact the church and its people. The leadership is going to want to know if this lines up with the church, and yes, it does, because it's about making true disciples and equipping them. It's also something that has to be focused on discipleship, not fundraising. Help leadership understand this is not about raising more money. This is really truly about discipling people, and the result may be that they'll be more generous. More likely they will be, but it's really discipleship. Yeah, you can't do much without the leadership on board, that's for sure.
Where do we go from here? Number two, understand the needs of your people. Don't assume you know what people need or want. Ask them.
It's okay to do a survey and ask specifically what people are struggling with or what people would like to know regarding financial stewardship. And then go ahead and launch that based on the education that they want. So look at what kind of classes are they willing to go to. Is it a one-day seminar, a workshop, multi-week classes, in-person, on-demand, and then go from there. So the leadership is on board, we know what the needs are, and now we start to build our team.
What do we need to know? Well, it's important that you build a team so that you can scale for church-wide impact. So host a vision night to recruit volunteers, find those who have a passion and calling to serve in stewardship ministry, just like you do, and then provide the training, both biblical and practical. You want to help them understand what God says, but also help them walk that out. And let CSN help you. Here at Christian Stewardship Network, we actually do that. We help churches learn how to train their own people so that they can build a ministry that will be effective.
Yeah. So now you have your team in place, Leo. How do you get started? How do you launch?
Well, that's just it. You have to launch. The sooner you start, the more you will learn and can adapt the ministry to meet the needs of your people. And if possible, start with a church-wide event.
We recommend a seminar, a one-day workshop or something like that, because that'll put it on the map so that everyone in the church will see that this is something that the church is going to engage in. And then anything that follows will just be supported by that same notion that we are going to be focusing on this area. Yeah, that's really helpful. I know there's one final step, and it's an important one. Share it with us.
Yeah. Number five is celebrate ministry impact. You have to capture and share testimonies of life change. This will benefit by encouraging other participants who may not yet feel like this is for them, but also it validates the impact and benefit of ministry to the leadership, resulting in more buy-in and more support. And of course, measure and report impact regularly to your leadership.
That's part of the celebration, is that you're letting your leadership know, this is working, here's a life change that's happening. This is so helpful, Leo. How can folks get more information? Well, go to christianstewardshipnetwork.com. We have plenty of resources, we have a membership, and we have training. We have training that actually is going to be happening March 4th through the 6th at Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale. We have our CSN annual forum event that we do every year. It's a three-day event for leaders to come and get equipped.
Leo, that's so helpful. I've been watching the work of CSN for a long time. Talk to folks about how practical the help is that you can offer as they launch their ministry. Yeah, we have a membership where people can sign up and actually connect with other stewardship leaders. And of course, we have a lot of content, courses that we're releasing all the time to equip and disciple those people to know how to do this ministry in their own churches.
Yeah, that's right. Take advantage of it, folks. It's a huge resource. Leo, thanks for stopping by. My pleasure, Rob. Leo Szabo has been our guest today. That website again, christianstewardshipnetwork.com. That's christianstewardshipnetwork.com. All right, your calls are just around the corner.
800-525-7000. Stay with us. We'll be right back. As a faithful listener of this program, you know that there's life-changing financial wisdom in God's Word, and FaithFi is here to help you and millions of others learn to be good and faithful stewards. As a nonprofit organization, we rely on help from monthly FaithFi patrons, supporters of this mission, to help us continue and expand our outreach. Has God provided financial answers for you through this ministry? If so, consider becoming a monthly FaithFi patron.
Visit faithfi.com and click Give. Welcome back. This is Faith in Finance. I'm Rob West. We're taking your calls today. 800-525-7000.
That's 800-525-7000. Let's dive in today. We're going to begin in Naples. John, you'll be our first caller.
Go ahead. Thank you, Rob. Thank you for taking the call. Yes, I listen in the program every day, and my son, he is 14, and he is asking me, well, he asked me yesterday while you were on the program, what could be the best advice for him to, you know, start smart in his, you know, financial life? He's got, at a point, $100 in savings.
What would be the best advice for him? Yeah, well, I love that, that you're starting him early, number one. Obviously, he's listening in as you're listening, and that's great because there's really two tracks here, John.
He needs to be on. One is the, what I'll call the financial literacy. He needs to understand the importance of hard work unto the Lord and that, you know, that's how we receive funding.
It comes from God, but it's through hard work, and God ordained that. He needs to understand the importance of saving, the importance of giving, the importance of living within his means and having a spending plan. But he also needs to understand a biblical worldview of money management as well that God owns it all and that we're actually tasked with being his manager and being faithful in handling that and that God's word gives us principles that we can pull out and apply to our financial lives. Now, when it comes to this $100, kind of with that as a backdrop, I like the approach, especially with kids who are, you know, still young, understanding this idea of give, save, spend, that, you know, with every dollar we receive, we should give systematically, we should save a portion of it, and then a portion can be reserved for spending.
And whenever we want to think about how we can put our money to work for us, we always want to think about it in times of our expected time horizon. So the question is, in what time frame would he want to be able to use this? So if he's got his eye on, you know, a particular thing that he's saving for, and that happens to be something he might, you know, want to be able to access in less than five years, then he may want to just keep it in a savings account even though he's earning a little bit of interest because he knows he's saving for something in particular. If, however, he is not saving for something in particular and just wants to be able to let this money grow and he's willing to, you know, not use it in the next few years, well, then I, you know, think you could start looking at investing and beginning to teach him about investing in the stock market. Which do you think would be most appropriate and what time horizon do you think is right? I think investing would be fine.
I mean, it's going to be almost half of the year, which is not being, he hasn't spent anything of that amount. So he is able to increase. But what kind of, you know, investment do you think? Which ones? I don't know.
Yeah. Well, it's a great question and I think, you know, at this age, I would love for him to do the research and pick the company. Now, normally we'd want to be really properly diversified.
We'd not want to have all of our eggs in one basket. And so typically the way you would do that is to take this amount of money and put it into a mutual fund. And then with $100, you'd actually own, you know, dozens or even hundreds of companies.
And that gives you good diversification. The challenge is with just a young man who's beginning to learn investing, what you want to really drive home is this idea that he actually owns a percentage of a real company. And so I kind of like the idea of through what's called fractional shares, him taking this $100 and finding and selecting the company that he would like to invest in. Perhaps it's a company he enjoys their brand or their product or he has some affinity for their product or service and he'd like to invest in that company. And that way he's got an interest in it. He could follow along with the company, see how it does. Maybe you even set up a time once a month where he reports back to you on any news that came out about the company. And he'll begin to really understand what this idea of ownership in a particular company looks like.
And so if you wanted to do that, you could use an app like Robinhood or Stockpile. Either of those would allow him to buy what are called fractional shares where he might not even be able to afford one share of a company, but he could buy one fifth of one share of a company with that $100. And again, he would make that selection. And I would encourage this, you know, as an opportunity for you all to communicate about what company he selected and why.
And then you all could watch it together. So that would be one approach. The other approach is to take the $100 and put it into a mutual fund where he's got that diversification and maybe he uses one of what are called faith-based investing mutual funds. And these are companies that are not only looking to invest in companies that are creating value for shareholders, but also they're making a positive impact in the world. And he could begin to research how that particular mutual fund goes about doing that. And if he wanted to do that, one of the funds I might look at would be a fun family called Eventide. You can find them if you just put a search in your search engine, Eventide Mutual Funds, and he could begin to research how they make their selections for the holdings in their mutual fund and how they are making a positive impact in the world. And that would be really interesting for him as well.
So I would probably take one of those two approaches, either, you know, Robinhood or Stockpile buying fractional shares in a single company that he picks or a faith-based investing mutual fund like Eventide. Either of those could be great. John, I hope that helps. Thanks for your call today. And let's head to Miami. Go ahead, Alex. My employer offers a 457 investment plan, and knowing that we will have taxes be going up in the future, do you really think it's a benefit?
I do. I mean, you're right. We expect the tax rates, if they're going anywhere, are going up. We know if nothing changes, the current Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that Trump put in place that resulted in these lower tax rates we're paying now is expiring in 2025. So starting in 2026, unless somebody extends that, you know, they're going up. Now, obviously, we've got a presidential election right around the corner. We don't know the future of the makeup of Congress. And so that's obviously something that remains to be seen.
But you're right. We could expect with some degree of reasonable analysis that the rates are headed higher. Why would you continue to contribute to a 457? Well, not only do you get the tax deferral going in, so that's excluded from your adjusted gross income, but you get the tax deferred growth. So the nice part about that is, as you're investing during your working years, and you make investments, and they have profits, and then they're sold, and it's moved into some other investment because your mutual fund manager inside your 457 is buying and selling stocks. The benefit is that, you know, those gains are not having any kind of drag on the investments, because that's inside that tax deferred environment. So 100% of the profits inside that investment are working for you, as opposed to you investing outside of that 457. You don't get the current deduction and as you have profits along the way, you'd be paying capital gains on that.
So I think for that reason, it's worth continuing to invest in it. Now, if you had a Roth option, I might do both contribute some to the Roth and some to the traditional. The studies say that if you have both options, you're better off to go with the portion in the traditional or the tax deferred option. You take your age and add 20 to it. So if you were 50, you'd put 70% in the traditional version, and then put the balance, and in my example, 30% in a Roth version, an after tax vehicle.
But if you don't have the Roth option, then I'd put 100% in that 457 plan. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. Thank you very much. You're welcome, Alex. Thanks for your call today.
A quick break and back with much more. Stay with me. We're grateful for support from Eventide Investments on the Faith and Finance Program. Eventide's approach to values-based investing is grounded in the belief that humankind was created in the image of God with intrinsic dignity, value, and worth. Eventide calls this investing that makes the world rejoice. More information is available at eventideinvestments.com.
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Christian Healthcare Ministries at chministries.org slash faithbuy. We're back. I'm Rob West, and this is Faith and Finance. Thanks for listening today. Thanks for taking the time. As we head into our calls and questions, I want to take a moment to ask you if you've downloaded the FaithFi app.
You can use it on your desktop or your mobile device. All right, let's head to the phones. By the way, if you have a question, just call 800-525-7000.
That's 800-525-7000. Let's go to Chicago. Hi, Joe. Go ahead.
Hi, Rob. Thanks so much for taking my call. My question is, what are your thoughts on life insurance settlements? We purchased two term life insurance policies to cover me while I worked in case something happened to me, and the policies are set to increase to a higher rate in 2024 and 2025.
That's when they were maturing. Our plan is, and always has been, to let them lapse. When I was looking at LinkedIn one day, I saw that its firm would give us money for the policies. I haven't filled out the information yet, but just wondered what your thoughts were on this. For the average person, Joe, who's in a situation like you where you had a term policy, you're in relatively good health, you have a policy that's about to lapse, this really isn't a case for life insurance settlements. They're going to want to make sure that you have a terminal illness or there's some reason to believe this, from an investment standpoint, this makes sense. And obviously, with this policy about to go up dramatically at the end of its term, unless it's convertible to a whole life policy and from an actuarial standpoint in terms of your life expectancy, unless it makes sense to them, there's just really not a whole lot here. So the idea behind life insurance, I mean, you could think about it like car insurance. You have it to protect you and offset a risk, but you hope you don't ever have to collect. And the same is true with the term insurance, which is just the pure insurance offsetting the risk that you have during your working years that if you were to pass away, it's going to create a hardship for a loved one who's depending on that income. Well, you had that coverage, you paid for it, you know, just covering the mortality expense, but you didn't have to use it, and that's great. So we let it lapse, we either replace it with another term policy, you know, maybe a shorter term to get you through your working years, or we just let it go because, you know, we had that coverage and it offset that risk.
But unless you're in a particular situation with a certain type of policy and a health status that warrants it, I think the life insurance settlement is really not a viable option. I hope that helps you, Joe. We appreciate you calling today. Thanks for being on the program.
Let's head to Minnesota. Hi, Tina. How can I help you?
Hi, Rob. First of all, thank you for what you do. You're definitely a blessing to a lot of us. Well, thank you.
You're welcome. So the question that I have for you, my husband and I were actually looking at downsizing and we came up on what they call a lifestyle home loan. And what it supposedly is not is we were told it's not a reverse mortgage. They require about half of the home purchase price. And then for the remainder of your life, if you want, you can pay the taxes, insurance and HOA while the remaining owned amount continues to accrue interest. If the buyer decides to sell at the end of their life or if they want to sell and move into another home, then you would end up paying that interest.
And I wanted to know what do you think about this? To me, it still sounds like a reverse mortgage, but it's on a new purchase home. OK, well, you can do a reverse mortgage on a new purchase.
And that's what I suspect this is. I mean, I think this is probably just a rebranding of a home equity conversion mortgage, which, again, you can do on an existing property if you have enough equity and you're at least 62. Or you can do it on a new purchase as well.
And there's a couple of varieties of it. I mean, you can do a lump sum payment where you'd use it to pay off an existing mortgage or purchase a retirement home when downsizing or upsizing. And then you can use it for a purchase. You can also do it as a line of credit and you can do it also as you get a monthly income stream out of it. But essentially, it is a reverse mortgage. Now, one of the benefits of the home equity conversion mortgage is that it's backstopped by the FHA, the Federal Housing Administration. So the lender is kind of off the hook and you don't ever have to pay it back until either you sell the house or you die. And that life expectancy is not an issue there. As long as you're alive, they're going to not require you to pay anything.
And if for some reason they paid you more than the value of the property, that's where the FHA steps in and backstops that payment. And so it can be an option for somebody who's looking either to just eliminate that major expense in this season of life or they're looking to convert this asset to an income stream so they don't have to rely so heavily on investments or Social Security or both. Now, some people don't want to go this route. And I certainly understand that because they want to get out of debt and stay there.
And if that's your conviction, I would say go for it. But for some folks, you know, this can be a viable option. I think the key is kind of the fine print just in terms of, you know, they're calling this a lifestyle home loan. You know, what does that mean? You know, that's obviously just their branding for a particular product. And so you're going to need somebody who can evaluate what it is they're offering and compare that to another type of product to see is there something better that accomplishes your ultimate goals and objectives.
So what I might do, Tina, is get a second opinion. Our friends at Movement Mortgage are specialists in this. I'd go to movement.com slash faith. That's movement.com slash faith and just ask them to take a look at it, give you a second offer for this type of product that accomplishes, again, what you're looking for.
And just make sure because these things aren't all created equal. Some of them have lots of high fees and expenses. You know, there's an embedded interest rate inside of it. You want to know what that is.
You want to make sure that it has the features of the home equity conversion mortgage so that you can't outlive this and that, you know, there is the FHA backstop. So I just think you need to get a bit more information and you really need somebody who can evaluate it objectively or at the very least just give you a second opinion. Does that all make sense? It totally makes sense, Ralph. Thank you so much. All right. Very good.
Yeah. Just head to movement.com slash faith and you can somebody will get in touch with you and give you all the details. God bless you, Tina. Thanks for being on the program. Well, once again, our time went by way too fast, but tune in next time and we'll do it all over again. Before we go, I'd like to thank our incredible production team, Amy, Devin, Jim, Robert, Brandy, Rob and Ben. Couldn't do it without them. Have a great rest of your day and I'll see you again next time for another edition of Faith and Finance. Faith and Finance is provided by Faith Buy and listeners like you.
