Christian Financial Planner Update with Kurt Cornfield

What's most important to you when it comes to choosing your financial advisor? Someone who's aligned with your biblical values. How about someone who will take the time to explain your options? Certified Kingdom Advisors are professionals who meet high standards in competence and integrity and have been trained to offer biblical financial advice.

To find a Certified Kingdom Advisor in your area, visit faithfi.com and click Find a CKA. Do you like helping people get their finances in order? Maybe you have a gift for numbers. Well, there's good news straight ahead. Hi, I'm Rob West. A while back, we broke the news about a whole new career field that's opening up, the Christian Financial Planner. Kurt Kornfield is here today to give us an update, so you don't want to miss that. 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 decisions. Well, we've been looking forward to having my friend, Kurt Kornfield, back with us to find out more about this exciting program. Kurt is Associate Professor of Financial Planning at Liberty University. He's also a Certified Financial Planner and a Certified Kingdom Advisor. Kurt, great to have you back. Oh, I love being on the show, Rob, so thanks for having me.

Absolutely. Hey, Kurt, when you were on with us in June, you unveiled this new Christian Financial Planner program. But for folks who may not have heard that program, would you share with us what it is and how it works? Yeah, so there's about seven universities right now, Christian universities in this country that have offered CFP, which stands for Certified Financial Planner programs. In that course curriculum, the main five areas they cover is estate planning, investments, tax planning, retirement planning, and insurance planning. Students get well-trained on the basics of what it means to help people holistically with their financial plans. But what's been really cool is the Christian universities, these seven at least that we've mentioned before, are adding the CKA, the Certified Kingdom Advisor content, which means that from a behavioral finance perspective, the students that get trained are learning what the Bible says about money and finances. And that's really been the most exciting part about what's going on. Well, it really is because as we said in the opener, this is now a whole new career track for students going into college. But as they graduate, ready to sit for the CFP and the CKA, they're ready to enter financial services, specifically aligning their work with the work of a Certified Kingdom Advisor who really is bringing their faith into their practice.

So give us an update. I know you're talking to a lot of the professors around the country who are running these programs. You're, of course, boots on the ground with your students there at Liberty.

How's it going? Well, what's really cool, as I was looking back, we just finished our 13th year, but 13 years ago, before 13 years ago, there was zero programs in this country that were doing what we're doing out of about 110 universities that were then offering CFP. There's now 146 universities in the country that offer CFP, but somewhere around 15, 16 of those are actually Christian universities now. So it's 10 percent of the schools are actually Christian universities. So that in itself is amazing. In 13 years, we've been able to go from zero to 10 percent of all schools offering the CFP curriculum. So I'm just excited that we are kind of the first to break the ice.

And since then, there's been lots of universities that have decided to adopt these programs. That's great. And what are you seeing? I mean, I know you're interacting with these students every day as they catch a vision, Kurt, for their opportunity to bring their faith with them into their career track post undergraduate degree. What are they experiencing?

Yes. So your organization, well, Kingdom Advisors has helped us a lot because our relationship with Kingdom Advisors right from the beginning has been what really makes it different. And so when we expose them first to the biblical content, but then to just the Kingdom Advisor organization. So they get to meet really cool people at the Kingdom Advisor Conference throughout the year. They try to meet lots of these people when they go visit these various workplaces where these Kingdom Advisors exist. And they really kind of capture their ability to integrate their faith into their lives 24 seven. Because what I know about young people today, Christian young people, because that's mainly what I get to work with, is they really want to integrate their faith into their lives and they don't just want to do it on Sundays. And so there are professions, of course, full time Christian workers and so on, where they can do that. And this is one where they can do that and still make a pretty good living. And so we don't like to apologize for that. But it is it is fun that they get to serve others, but still provide for their own families as well.

It's really exciting. Well, there's a lot more for us to talk about with Kurt Kornfield today. He's associate professor of financial planning at Liberty University. When we come back, we'll talk about the development path for a student coming out of one of these programs and entering financial services. If you'd like to see a list of these schools that Kurt described, you can do that at KingdomAdvisors.com.

Click the industry tab and then universities. Much more to come with Kurt Kornfield just around the corner. Stay with us.

We'll be right back. What's most important to you when it comes to choosing your financial advisor? Someone who's aligned with your biblical values?

How about someone who will take the time to explain your options? Certified Kingdom Advisors are professionals who meet high standards in competence and integrity, and have been trained to offer biblical financial advice. To find a Certified Kingdom Advisor in your area, visit Faithfi.com and click Find a CKA. If you enjoy this radio program, you're going to love all of the many different resources waiting for you at Faithfi.com and the Faithfi app. You'll find powerful wisdom, free podcasts, articles, videos, and more from leading voices such as Randy Alcorn, Howard Dayton, Ron Blue, and our own Rob West.

Grow in wisdom and knowledge by connecting with a community of thousands of Christians striving to be good and faithful stewards at Faithfi.com or by downloading the Faithfi app. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance. Joining me today, my good friend Kurt Kornfield, Certified Financial Planner, Certified Kingdom Advisor, and Associate Professor of Financial Planning at Liberty University. Just before the break, we were talking about this exciting career path that now exists for students getting an undergraduate degree in financial planning, taking the CFP, the Certified Financial Planner educational track, and the Certified Kingdom Advisor so they're ready to enter financial services coming out of college and bring their faith with them, which is so exciting. Kurt, many of our listeners are parents of those prospective students, and they want to know there's a job waiting for them when they graduate, and the really cool thing is there is, isn't there? Yeah, that's the one thing that's so much fun for me because I love helping kids get jobs and virtually, since 2015, 100% of our graduates have jobs. Not to brag, but the truth is they could have multiple jobs, and so employers are really very competitive and they want to come after these students, but these are some of the best students and they're rightfully getting hired.

Yeah, that's great. We'll talk about that development path. What does it look like for someone entering the financial advising industry? And then let's put this overlay of somebody who's also prepared with the CKA education. Yeah, having been in the trenches now for 13, 14 years doing this with college kids, we're seeing this progression of what are their real needs, not just the kids that go into this as a profession, but now the students that go into other professions, often sometimes they have financial messes. They get themselves into too much school debt, and those kids need counseling. They just need help getting over that debt hump, and then there's others that don't have the financial debt burdens, but they're just starting out and they need what I would call basic coaching.

They just need to be pointed in the right direction. Now once someone is a certified financial planner, they can give more holistic advice, and so we're seeing the need for students to kind of go into all of these areas, both the counseling, the coaching, the planning area, and so it's been fun to see that that's also percolating out of these universities. It's not just financial planners, but we have these counselors and coaches that are available to help all Christians, not just the students. That's great. Let's dive into that coaching aspect a little bit more. Some of the schools, including Liberty that we're talking about today, actually offer peer coaching programs.

I love this. Tell us what that entails. Yeah, we're going to have 27 of our students this coming year that will actually get trained. We train them for several days to serve their fellow students, but the main point that we train them with is, what does the Bible say about money and finances? So when they help their fellow students with budgeting, debt management, and a little investment education, they do that all with a biblical worldview, which is really cool. And we're not the only university doing this.

This is prevalent now in many of these Christian universities. I know Biola out on the West Coast has been a leader, Calvin College in Michigan, and IWU in Indiana, and Charleston Southern in South Carolina. They've all had these peer coaching programs now for at least a half a dozen years or more, and it's really impacting their whole campuses, which is exciting.

Yeah, it really is. And Kurt, as you said, there's nine programs now that are offering CFP and CKA. Many of those have these peer counseling programs, and if you want to get a list of each of these programs, including how you can learn more about the program at that university, just go to kingdomadvisors.com. You'll click the industry leader tab at the top of the page, and then universities, and that will give you a list of every university, the professor over the program, and a button to actually take a look at the program itself.

Again, it's all there at kingdomadvisors.com. But we're just getting started, Kurt. I know your passion is to see more and more Christian universities actually deploying these types of programs, right? Yeah, we know there's well over a hundred Christian universities in this country, and so obviously there's still room for everybody to be doing this, and so I'd like to challenge your listeners, because I know you have a great group of listeners, that if they're near one of these Christian universities, especially if they're already trained as a financial advisor, especially when they understand the biblical worldview, let's partner up with these universities, make sure they're offering personal finance classes from a biblical worldview, and then if it's possible for them to also consider these peer coaching programs and these CFP programs, all of those things are happening. And I want Christian schools to kind of take over this industry. You know, if we're up to 10 percent now, you know, why not—let's get to 50 percent of these schools being Christian schools offering CFP. I think we can own this space and really have a lot more Christians in the business, and it's at all these various levels.

Hmm, that's great. What would you say to a parent who wants to be able to describe this opportunity to their high schooler who perhaps they've identified an interest or a competency in this whole area of finance or financial management? What would you say to them about the opportunity on one of these tracks pursuing CFP and CKA? Yeah, I usually first point out that there's still some confusion in the industry, because 40 years ago when I started, pretty much everybody that came into the industry was a salesperson. And because we were in a commission-based transactional world. But that, over the 40 years that I've been around this, that's changed drastically.

And we're more relational now, and most advisors charge fees, not commissions. And that has changed the conversation, and it changes the career path for young people, because they don't have to be salespeople. Because if we tell them they have to be salespeople, that usually scares them away. So I first have to remind the parents and the kids that these are not sales jobs. These are service jobs. We get to serve people holistically. And once they understand that, they start to see, you mean I can talk to people about my faith, and I can talk to people about what the Bible says about money and finances, whether I work with Christian clients or not. And the answer is yes.

And once that light bulb goes off, even the parents and the kids get excited about the career possibilities. That's great. Now, I did hear a little secret, Kurt, that if you're a student in one of your programs there at Liberty, it's actually a requirement to listen to this broadcast every day.

Is that right? Well, I teach personal finance, and then I also teach these financial planning courses. And yes, I do make them listen to your program. But part of it is I want them to just start listening to you and what the Bible says about money and finances. I love the fact that when you answer questions, you always answer it from a biblical worldview. And I want all students, not just the ones that are going to go into this as a career path, to kind of get that in their hearts and minds when they start out on this front end. I don't want them to be like most of us Christians, me included, where that light bulb didn't go off until I was about 50, you know, where I realized, hey, I should be paying attention to what the Bible says about money and finances in everything I do. And we're trying to train these kids right from the beginning now, and your program makes my job easy.

Kurt, we have just about 30 seconds left. I'm sure it's incredibly rewarding for you to see your former students now in financial services on mission for Jesus, isn't it? You know that for a fact, because obviously you've met some of my former students and you get to hear their stories. And yeah, God has put me in a unique place here at a unique university, and I'm just so grateful.

And I would like to challenge. There's not a lot of other people, you know, maybe in the second half of their career and their lives, and they're just thinking about how they can give back in a different way. We need, you know, more people doing what I'm doing.

You know, these universities, if they have one problem, it's they can't find enough people to serve these classes that they need. So let's challenge some people to come into this career path. I love it. Kurt, thanks for stopping by today, my friend. You're welcome, Rob.

Love being here. I'm Kurt Kornfield, Associate Professor of Financial Planning at Liberty University. To find out more about his program and the other eight universities offering CFP and CKA, go to kingdomadvisors.com. Your calls are next.

We'll be right back. Are you struggling to fit your faith into your practice as a Christian financial advisor? The Certified Kingdom Advisor designation teaches you a step-by-step process to confidently deliver advice that aligns with Christian values. Discover the skills you need to help your clients make a kingdom impact. Get started today by enrolling in the CKA educational program at kingdomadvisors.com slash get certified.

That's kingdomadvisors.com slash get certified. 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 to Faith and Finance. I'm Rob West, 800-525-7000 is the number to call. Let's head to Cleveland, Ohio. Hi, John. Go ahead, sir. Hi, Rob. Love the show. Thanks for taking the call.

Thank you. I'm a union laborer out of Cleveland, and I'll be retiring in about two years. We have a pension and an annuity fund. My question is, the annuity is doing real well right now. It has done for my whole career, but I feel I should take the annuity out and do my own investments in two years. Is that something I should do or keep the money in the union and keep doing their investment?

Yeah. Well, I certainly think you could go either way, and it's going to come down to, number one, I like the fact if you were to get the lump sum and it made sense based on the amount they were going to give you versus, let's say, an income stream for the rest of your life or the rest of your life plus the life of your spouse, it's going to come down to just kind of how those numbers work out, depending on how much they're willing to give you. In either case, it may make sense to do one or the other. The benefit, though, of getting the lump sum is you're in control over it, so you have more control over how it's invested. If you need to access the principal, you need to get access to more money. You have the ability to do that, whereas with the income stream, by leaving it inside the annuity structure, you don't. You can get a monthly check for the rest of your life, but you're not going to be able to get to the money if you need it.

Let's say you had a major medical event or something like that. The other factor is just performance. You said it's done incredibly well, so you may want to look at that as a part of the decision just to say how has it been performing, how might we expect it to perform in the future and how does that stack up against what we think we could reasonably get on our own if we were to invest it in a fairly conservative portfolio, which is what you would typically have in retirement. How do those two things stack up with one another?

Bottom line is it'd be worth some time with an advisor just to look at both options. What are they going to give you monthly? What's the amount they'd give you as a lump sum?

How is the performance done on the other side? What might be done when you get it out? Just looking at all that in light of your financial situation, whether you have a shortfall every month in the income needed to cover your expenses and if you left it there and didn't take the risk of investing it but got the income stream, if that would make up the gap, that may give you peace of mind just to know that, okay, at least my bills are paid and I don't have to think about how the stock market is going to perform or anything like that. But perhaps this is money over and above what you're going to need monthly because you got the pension and maybe that's covering your bills and so if so, you may value having access to the full lump sum. So I think just to sum all that up, usually I like the lump sum but there are a number of factors I would consider before I made a final decision and that's where I think an advisor could be helpful to you.

Does that all make sense? Yeah, it sure does because I'll only be 57 years old so I'm still going to work. So there's a lot, I mean it's going to be moving north of $500,000 and by far that kind of money is not in my wheelhouse so I'm definitely going to go to a Kingdom advisor but the other quick question is, from my understanding, moving out of annuity and making your own annuities, you really don't have to worry about penalties, is that correct?

Right, I mean as long as you stay within the tax deferred structure, then you could just do a rollover and that would not be a taxable event whether or not there's any fees imposed upon the company as it's rolled out, you'd have to check with them but it's not going to generate any taxes as long as you roll it from a qualified annuity into a qualified retirement account like an IRA. So I think just given what I hear, I mean the fact that you've got a half million dollars in play, the fact that you're still young and you've got time on your side, I kind of like the idea of you rolling this out to an IRA, having control over it, you get an advisor to help you manage it wisely and in accordance with your goals and objectives but then you have access to the money if you need it over time. The place you would interview several certified Kingdom advisors and find the one that's the best fit, which is probably a good idea to go ahead and do now, is on our website at faithfi.com, that's faithfi.com and then just click Find a CKA. Hey, all the best to you John in the days ahead, sounds like you've got an exciting season coming up here as you transition to whatever God has for you next. We appreciate your kind remarks about the program and for calling today. God bless you my friend. All right, back to the phones as we round out the program today, we'll get to as many calls as we can here in our remaining moments. John's in Chicago, go ahead sir. Yes, Rob, good afternoon, thanks for taking my call, I sure appreciate the show.

Thank you. Rob, I have a question when it comes to debt management programs here. I hear two of them advertised on Christian radios. One is christiancreditcounseling.org and the other one is Trinity. I was wondering if there's a way to choose between them, what's your advice on that? Yeah, no, I would just say both very reputable organizations, I only have experience with Christian Credit Counselors personally and here at our ministry just because we've worked with them so long and they've worked with hundreds and hundreds of our listeners to Faith and Finance and so I know the folks there personally and can personally attest to just how they care for folks and the services that they offer in debt management. I know Trinity to be very reputable and obviously I would absolutely stand by that, I've just never worked with them directly.

But I think the bigger idea here, John, is just that debt management, credit counseling is my preferred way to go, whether you use Christian Credit Counselors or Trinity, that's the most effective way to get out of debt once and for all, get the interest rates down and pay them off in their entirety. So I would say if you're kind of wrestling between the two, maybe set up an initial free consultation with both of them and then just make a decision from there. Sounds good. Now the rates they offer, Rob, are they the same, do you know if that to be true or not? You know, I don't know enough to be able to comment on that so I think that would be one of my first questions is, you know, how are you compensated and what are those fees so that could be a part of the comparison. It's bigger than that though, make sure you're going to get served well and that you feel like you've got a good fit with whoever you choose but I don't unfortunately have those details in front of me. John, I know you had a part two so we'd love to get you back on a future broadcast, same for you Flora in Chicago, I apologize we didn't get to your question, stay on the line, we'll get your information, thanks for being on the program today. 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 Faithfi and listeners like you. Have a great day.