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3 Things Your Pastor Wishes You Knew about Giving with Leo Sabo

Faith And Finance / Rob West
The Truth Network Radio
November 25, 2024 3:00 am

3 Things Your Pastor Wishes You Knew about Giving with Leo Sabo

Faith And Finance / Rob West

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November 25, 2024 3:00 am

As Thanksgiving week reminds us of the many blessings we enjoy, it’s natural to reflect on gratitude. But does gratitude naturally lead to generosity? Leo Sabo joins us today to discuss three things your pastor wishes you knew about giving.

Leo Sabo is the President of the Christian Stewardship Network (CSN), where he gets to share the incredible impact financial stewardship and generosity can have on the Church. 

1. Giving Has Spiritual Benefits

Your pastor wants you to know that giving is deeply tied to your spiritual growth. It’s not just about meeting church needs—it’s about discipleship and trust in God. Learning to surrender your finances to God is a major step in your faith journey.

  • A Holistic View of Stewardship: Generosity encompasses more than money. It includes your time, talents, and treasures. Your pastor hopes you'll see giving as a condition of the heart, not just a financial act.
  • 100% Belongs to God: Some believe tithing is the only portion of our money that matters to God, but your pastor wants you to see all your resources as belonging to Him. True stewardship involves inviting God to have authority over everything you own.
  • An Act of Worship: Giving is not a "membership fee" for the church. It’s an act of worship that overflows from a heart grateful to God.
2. Stewardship Is Discipleship

Stewardship—responsibly managing your resources—is a key aspect of your faith. Many pastors offer financial management courses to help members learn biblical principles for saving, budgeting, avoiding debt, and investing.

  • Why Stewardship Matters: Jesus frequently taught about money because how we handle it reveals the condition of our hearts. Faithful stewardship fosters generosity and aligns our financial decisions with God’s will.
  • Programs for Your Growth: Churches often provide financial programs to equip members for wise money management. Pastors want you to know these resources are offered out of love and desire to see you spiritually and financially flourish.
3. Transparency and Accountability Are Crucial

In today’s world, donors increasingly value financial transparency and accountability. Your pastor understands this and prioritizes using your gifts responsibly.

  • Building Trust: Transparency reassures members that their generosity funds vital ministries like teaching, worship gatherings, and community outreach.
  • The Church’s Responsibility: Churches rely solely on donor support, and your pastor wants you to feel confident that your gifts are being used to advance God’s kingdom in meaningful ways.
Turning Gratitude Into Action

This Thanksgiving, let your gratitude inspire generosity. Giving is more than a financial transaction—it’s a spiritual act that draws us closer to God. By embracing these principles of stewardship, you can experience the joy and freedom that come from trusting God with your resources. May your giving reflect a heart of worship, and your stewardship bring glory to the One who owns it all.

If you're inspired to grow in generosity or want to start a stewardship ministry in your church, the Christian Stewardship Network offers tools and guidance for launching and managing effective stewardship programs. Visit ChristianStewardshipNetwork.com for more information.

On Today’s Program, Rob Answers Listener Questions:
  • I have a 36-year-old granddaughter who is a single parent with a low income and a 660 credit score. She was going to have to move but doesn't have to now. I was planning to give her $11,000 for a down payment, but she also has a $300/month car loan with 4 years left. Would it be better to use the $11,000 to pay off her car loan instead? Would that help improve her credit and give her extra cash to save for a home?
  • I recently received a $25,000 gift and have put it into a savings account earning 4.5% interest. Should I take that $25,000 and put it back into my investment portfolio instead of leaving it in my savings account? I currently have three months' expenses saved as an emergency fund. What would be the better approach—keeping the $25,000 in the high-yield savings account or investing it?
  • I'm 20 years old and have a $250,000 mortgage at 2.6% interest. I have $5,000 left each month—$4,000 goes to high-yield savings and $1,000 to retirement. Should I focus on paying down the mortgage quickly or continue investing the extra funds since market growth has been good?
Resources Mentioned:

Remember, you can call in to ask your questions most days at (800) 525-7000. Faith & Finance is also available on the Moody Radio Network and American Family Radio. Visit our website at FaithFi.com where you can join the FaithFi Community and give as we expand our outreach.

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It's Thanksgiving week and we all have much to be thankful for, but does gratitude always translate into generosity? Leo Szabo joins us today to discuss three things your pastor wishes you knew about giving. And 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 always a treat to have Leo Szabo on the broadcast. Leo is a FaithFi contributor and the president of the Christian Stewardship Network. Leo, great to have you back with us. Always a pleasure, Rob.

Thanks for having me. Leo, CSN recently posted a really intriguing article, Three Things Your Pastor Wishes You Knew About Giving. Now, before we get into those things, why is it important to know our church leadership and have these conversations with them? Well, that's because effective giving conversations are crucial for the health of the church, but also its members. You know, usually when we're talking about this, we're focusing on financial goals, but conversations can and should go beyond just the numbers. After all, because God owns everything and we are stewards, money decisions are not just practical. They're also spiritual, revealing our motives and our hearts. Yeah, there's no doubt about that.

All right, let's dive into these areas. What's the first thing you believe our pastors want us to know about giving, Leo? Yeah, the first is members need to hear more about the spiritual benefits of giving. Your church leaders are probably well aware of the connection between giving and discipleship.

They also want you to know that learning to trust God with your money is a major component of your spiritual journey. Once you grasp that, it changes the way you feel about giving. Pastors would like their people to know that there's a holistic approach to stewardship comprising not just money, but time, talent, and treasure.

Generosity is about conditioning of the heart and its willingness to help in all respects, not just with a dollar amount. So, there's still discussing spiritual benefits of giving. Some people think that tithing is the only part of believers' money that God cares about, but your pastor wants you to know that a love-inspired steward sees everything he or she has as God's and gives him total authority, over 100% of it. And your pastor also wants you to understand that giving is between you and God, not between you and the church. Giving to the church is not a membership fee. Our giving is to God through the church, but it's really giving to the church. But really, we're giving to God, not to the church for its needs. Yeah, that's so foundational, what you just shared there, that our giving is an overflow of our gratitude to God, our recognition that he owns everything, and even an act of worship.

All right, let's continue to move through this list, Leo. What's the second thing you believe pastors want us to know? Yeah, it's really important to understand stewardship, and pastors want members to understand its meaning.

Stewardship is the responsible management of resources, including financial resources. And many churches offer courses on responsible financial management. Pastors want their people to know that the financial programs and classes that they offer is for their benefit. The Bible provides wisdom for managing money through financial principles like saving and budgeting and debt and investing.

And also, Jesus talked a lot about money and possessions because he knew that how we interact with these has a lot to do with the condition of a person's heart. Stewardship is an important part of discipleship, and pastors want you to know that their motivation is to offer these to you from the right heart. And also, faithful stewardship always leads to generosity, and that reinforces, of course, the first thing that your pastor wants you to know, and that is the gain of spiritual benefits for giving. Yeah, there's no doubt that stewardship is a key component of discipleship.

All right, one final thing. What does your pastor want you to know about giving? It also concerns transparency and accountability regarding the gifts. The goal should always be that church leaders and those striving to achieve it want their members to know that it's a priority to them. It's important because it's becoming common for people to express concern about financial transparency and call for greater accountability in churches and non-profits.

They want to know that their donations are being used responsibly, and this gives the church both a responsibility and an opportunity to show that members, themselves, and the community are recipients of ministry resources like good teaching, support, an environment to gather, worship, and serve, and a staff to manage all of that, all of which are funded strictly by donor generosity. Well, Leah, I know you talk to a lot of pastors, and so this comes from a place of understanding, and I know it's been an encouragement to our listeners today. If folks want to get connected with CSN to perhaps get help in starting a stewardship ministry in their church, Leo, where should they go? They should go to christianstewardshipnetwork.com. We'd love to help. Excellent. Leo and the team have been working with churches for a long time, and they can give you all the best practices for launching and running a healthy stewardship ministry in your church.

Again, christianstewardshipnetwork.com. Leo, thanks for stopping by. My pleasure, Rob. Thanks. Folks, back with your questions after this, 800-525-7000.

We'll be right back. Have you downloaded the Faith by app yet? You need to do that today because this is going to make your life easier. Yes, you can manage your money through the in-app envelope feature, but also plan out future goals. I want to buy a house in five years, and I'm on track to do that.

Here's also what I like. You can connect with people around the country. It's like social media, but better.

Ask a question, get an answer, and share what you're learning about money and investing. So why don't you grab your phone right now and download the Faith by app? Every day is a nightmare for girls being trafficked and abused. It's an evil that must be stopped. That's why India Partners rescues girls into safe houses so they never have to worry about this again.

Because I was young, I was in high demand, so the owner would bring in 30 to even 40 customers per day. Thank you to those who have invested in the safety and care of girls being trafficked, but there's still time to end the nightmare for another little girl. Rescue her now at indiapartners.org faith. Well, thanks for joining us today on Faith in Finance. I'm Rob West. It's almost that time in the broadcast where we turn the attention to your questions. We'd love for you to call right now. We've got some lines open. We've got room for you today. Whether you're thinking about balancing your budget, paying off debt, maybe it's giving wisely. Maybe you're in that season of life where you have a little bit more flexibility in terms of giving from an IRA in a tax advantaged way or giving appreciated stock before it's sold. We can talk about those ideas.

Perhaps it's investing for the future. Whatever's on your mind today, we'd love to hear from you. 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000 you can call right now. In the news today, some really interesting data out related to cars and what's happening in the car market right now and it's concerning. A growing number of Americans are upside down on their car loans.

That's according to a new survey by the automotive research site Edmonds. Worse, the amount owed on car loans is at an all-time high. This is a result of so-called negative equity on trade-ins. Buyers owe more on their trade-ins than the cars are worth, often described as being underwater or upside down on those loans.

Listen to this. The survey showed that about a quarter of new car buyers were upside down on their trade-ins. That's up 24% from the previous period. The average amount still owed on trade-ins is now at a record high of $6,500 and that's nearly a quarter of buyers that still owe at least $10,000 on their trade-ins. So it seems that folks are losing ground on paying off their car loans, actually going deeper in the hole as time goes on.

There's of course a way to avoid this. Number one, keep your car as long as possible, at the very least until the loan is paid off so you don't go backwards on a trade-in. Continue paying yourself the monthly payment. Once your car is paid off, that becomes your down payment on the next car. Do that with each car purchase until one day you can pay entirely in cash at the time of the purchase. It's almost impossible to pay cash for a home up front these days, but that's not the case with cars. You can eventually have enough saved to pay for a car outright if you really try and that's of course where you want to be. You'll save untold thousands of dollars over the years by not paying interest on car loans.

So just be on your guard there. You know this is really challenging just because of what has happened in the last several years in the car market because of supply chain constraints and chip shortages. We had a lower inventory of new cars that pushed used cars up as well. All that has led on top of the high interest rates to a real challenge for Americans. The average new car loan payment right now, monthly payment, is around $730. About $560 on average for Americans related to used cars and north of $500 as well on leases. But let's not get into that.

Bottom line is just be on your guard here. This is one of the three big budget busters. Housing, transportation, and food. Housing and transportation a little harder to curb over food, but nevertheless you can do it. So let's not get into car loans we can't afford. Let's certainly not replace cars before they're paid off. We don't want to carry that negative equity into the next car. That's just going to further put you upside down because remember if you're buying new you lose about 25 percent when you drive off the lot.

But if you're carrying five to seven thousand dollars even more than ten thousand dollars from the previous car into the new car well that really creates some challenges. So just be on your guard. Hope that helps. All right we're going to dive into your questions today. We've got lines open you can call right now 800-525-7000. Let's start today in Leesburg, Florida. Hi Bill, go ahead. Hi, how are you? Thank you for taking my call.

Yes sir, thank you. Okay, I have a granddaughter, 36 years old. She has two children, six and three. She's a single parent, low income. Her credit score is about 660.

She was running and she had to get it. She had to move, but now she doesn't have to move. She's a qualified first home buyer, so we'll put the down payment down. But I was going to give her money towards a down payment. Now that she's not pressured to move, I was wondering, she has a $300 a month car bill, you know, loan.

She's got four years left on it. Would I be better off paying off the car? Maybe her credit score will go up and she'll have, you know, actually a little extra cash she can save or give her money towards the mortgage.

I know if you put more money down the mortgage you don't save a lot. Yeah, very good. Okay, so give me those numbers again. What does she owe in the car right now total? 11,000.

All right, and what's the interest rate? I don't know. She doesn't know and it has to be high. Yeah, I'm sure it is.

Yeah, got it. And what is that credit score? You said it's in the 500s? 660. Oh, 660.

Okay, so under the top tier, but not terrible. And then currently you said she's renting. Is that right? Yeah, and she had to move. She had to move, but now she doesn't.

So she's not pressured to buy a house right now, so she's got more time to look. Okay, so what is it you're willing to commit here? And by the way, is that a gift, an outright gift?

Yeah. Okay, and how much are you willing to put or gift to her for either scenario? 11,000.

Okay, so a total of 11,000. And so your options are give her that with the instructions of, hey, I'd really like for you to set this aside for your future home purchase when that time comes, or I'd really love for you to pay off the car, but you want to direct her to one or the other? Is that what you're thinking? Right, because I thought paying off the car would give her an extra $300 a month.

Yeah, I like that a lot. And I think I would just really establish the idea and the value of if she could just treat it as if she still has that car payment, but just set it up as an automatic transfer to a high yield savings account, perhaps she opens, you know, one with the online bank, she could go to bankrate.com, find out who's paying the best rates right now, and then maybe link it up to her checking account, and then just have that automatic transfer every month. And now she's building up this reserve that she could ultimately use, you know, for a down payment. If she doesn't have an emergency fund, that would be the first priority. But she can find interest rates between, you know, 4.5 and 4.8%.

With an online bank, there's some that are even still paying over five. And I think the key is to get it out of the checking account, and just set up that automatic rhythm of savings, you'd really be helping her because now she's building up kind of this war chest, and you're saving her, you know, a good bit of money on that interest every month that she's no longer paying. So I think that's a great idea. Bill, I think that'd be a real blessing to her.

And I think the key is just to make it clear that, you know, your expectation is that this is not a loan of any kind, you're just blessing her with a stronger financial foundation. Does that make sense? Yeah. Do you think your credit score will go up if the cost paid off? Not necessarily.

I mean, probably a little bit. The challenge is it's going to remove one type of credit, and the credit mix is a part of the credit score. And so this is an installment loan, so that's going to come out of the equation. But the fact that she's reducing her overall debt levels, and she's an on-time payer, in fact, paying it in full is a good thing, but it just may not go as much as you expect. So if she doesn't have a credit card, maybe get her on a secured card with a recurring small budgeted item every month that she pays off in full, that would establish this rhythm.

She's probably just lacking history at this point. Hope that helps, Bill. Thanks for your call. All right, folks, we're just getting started here.

Let me mention we've got some lines open today. We're ready to take your calls. Whatever you're thinking about in your financial life today, we'd like to help you look at those questions and decisions you're making through the lens of Scripture, ultimately making God your ultimate treasure, but helping you make those practical daily decisions in light of God's Word.

So whether it's your spending plan that's out of control, or debt you're trying to repay, or some giving you're wanting to do, and you want to do it wisely, or maybe it's saving or investing for the future, whatever it is, call right now, 800-525-7000. This is Faith in Finance, and we'll be right back. As the leading advocate for the Christian financial industry, we're grateful for support from Timothy Plan. For more than 30 years, they've served clients on a biblically responsible journey to invest in a way that honors God and gives dignity to people's lives. More information is at timothyplan.com. The investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses are contained in the prospectus and summary prospectus available at timothyplan.com.

Mutual funds distributed by Timothy Partners LTD and ETFs distributed by Foresight Fund Services LLC. Hey, do you love the program? Do you listen regularly? Have you found something to be helpful as you've listened in the past here at Faith in Finance? Well, a great way you could bless us and help us continue to provide this broadcast each day is by becoming a FaithFi partner. You can do that when you head to faithfi.com.

Just click give at the top of the page. FaithFi Partners is a growing number of folks that give us at least $35 a month or more, or $400 a year. And just as our way of saying thanks, we provide exclusive quarterly ministry updates. We provide early release copies of all of our studies and devotions mailed to your door. Also, you'll get our brand new FaithFi publication.

We're launching that in January. It's beautiful. It's full of articles that I think will be an encouragement to you as a growing Christian who wants to have full faith integration in every area of your life, including finances. So helpful articles in departments like investing and conversations and wisdom, really chock full of scripture, but really practical advice as well. It's nearly 50 pages, and when it arrives at your door each quarter, I know you'll love digging into the content. We'll send it to you when you become a FaithFi partner. Again, faithfi.com.

Just click give. All right, let's head back to the phones. By the way, two lines open. 800-525-7000.

Let's go out to Texas. Hi, Brett. How can I help you? Hey, Ron.

How are you doing? Appreciate your ministry. Thank you. Thanks. Appreciate it.

You really do. Hey, I got a gift of $25,000, and I currently put it over into a savings account that's destroying 4.5% interest. What I'm wondering, Rob, is if I should take that $25,000 and put it back into my investment portfolio rather than just leave it in that savings account. What are your thoughts? Yeah, it's a great question. Let me ask a couple of follow-up questions before I give you my thoughts.

One is, do you have separate from this money you came into unexpectedly what I would call an emergency fund of three to six months expenses? We do. We have three. Yeah. Okay, great. Yeah. So you said you have three months? Yes. Okay.

Yeah. So I think you've got a choice here, which is, do I want to fully fund that emergency fund and try to get it up closer to six months, whatever that $25,000 equals? And if so, I'd leave it in liquid savings.

The reason you do that, I mean, why the three versus the six? Well, it's just how conservative you do you want to be, you know, is there uncertainty in your life with regard to, you know, although we never know what the future holds, only the Lord does, you know, some job situations are a little more secure than others. And, you know, the definition of an emergency fund is an unforeseen expense.

So we can't anticipate it. And yet, you know, in some cases or seasons, we want, you know, that full six months and others, we want three. So I think that's your first decision. If you're comfortable with just the three, and I certainly would be if you are, then I would say, yeah, let's get that into a longer time horizon investment, even though the four and a half percent is attractive, it's going to begin coming down, it already has, it will continue.

And I just like the idea of taking a longer term approach with the prospect of getting a better, you know, average annual return, not in any one year or two years, but over five and 10 years. Yeah, you're right. They just lowered it from six to 4.5. So yeah, you know, it is coming down. And that's going to continue. Yeah, yeah.

I'm in the middle of applying for disability income. So that kind of tells you where we are financially. Yeah. I think there's something to be said about maybe shoring up that emergency fund and just keeping that liquid. And you know, especially while you're still getting a good interest rate on it, and you could deploy it in the market, you know, maybe we get a pullback here in the next couple of years, or we do finally hit that recession that you know, we've been seeing even though the economy is holding up pretty well.

I think having some some extra cash on hand is never a bad idea. Okay, great. Well, that's very helpful. Again, thank you for your ministry. Absolutely.

Brett. Thank you, buddy. Thanks for calling.

Let's go to Indiana. Hi, Devin. Go ahead. Hi, how are you doing? I'm doing great.

Thanks for your call. Hey, so I am 20 years old, I've got a mortgage on my house, like 250,000. I bought it for like 285. It was a 30 year mortgage. My question is, is after expenses, I've got about $5,000, where I'm putting 4000 of that in high yield interest savings accounts, and then 1000 on retirement. My question is, is should I be paying down that mortgage as quick as possible, the interest rates only at a 2.6, whereas the market growth has been really good. And so I've been doing that and high yield interest savings accounts have been over five. And so I've just been, I've heard a lot of research and data on both sides, if you should pay your house and you should put it in the market.

So I wanted to get your opinion on that. Yeah, I appreciate that. I mean, that as you know, Devin, that's an incredible interest rate, and you've got a ton of discretionary income that you're not using, which is phenomenal. So clearly, you're not, you know, as your income is rising, you're not chewing that up with additional lifestyle spending, which is admirable and, and not the norm. And I love that you're thinking about being strategic, unless you have a real conviction to be debt free, I would not pay it toward the mortgage. I mean, you've got about the best interest rate going right now, there's not many people that have a 2.6% interest rate.

So apart from just a real conviction from the Lord to be debt free, I'd continue doing what you're doing. The only thing I would ask is, if you're putting 4000 a month in high yield savings, you probably have way more than, you know, six months worth of reserves at this point. And even though the that interest rate is pretty compelling, you know, the stock market has, has done quite a bit better than that this year. And so I might flip that, or start putting 100% of it in your retirement plan, just because, you know, you've probably got plenty in liquid savings. And now's the time to build assets for the future in a tax deferred environment. Does that make sense?

Yes, it does. And that's what we just I'm a small business owner as an attorney. And I've only been doing that for a couple years, but the income has been really good. And so we've hit our six month expense threshold of hitting that.

And then I've just been building on top of that with a new account. And so once I hit six months, I should then the advice would be then to switch over to putting still putting some in but putting less than and putting more on retirement. Yeah, I mean, I'd probably freeze contributing to and unless you all just have some target beyond six months, I'd probably wouldn't continue to put money in that high yield savings, especially as that interest rates come down.

I mean, let me just think about what's going on right now. I mean, the S&P 500 is up 23%. This year, the one year returns like 38%. Now, I wouldn't count on that going forward.

The long term average without dividends is a little more than seven. But you know, still, you're going to do better over the long haul. So I think you're in a situation where if you can keep your lifestyle modest, I'd get at least 15% go into retirement. And, you know, really make some good progress there. You can also start asking the question along the way, you know, are there other things we want to do?

For instance, do we have any giving desires, you know, around things that are really burdening us in terms of, you know, solving, you know, problems in the world or loving your neighbor, things like that. But I would say, just, you know, when you put the retirement savings alongside the just liquid reserves, once you get to six months at your age, I would just be dumping everything else into long term savings and investments personally. Okay.

Yeah, that sounds like a plan. And we definitely are a big push for giving and stuff. And that's where my mentor said it's learn, earn, return.

And he said, don't be so quick to skip the earn stage. But I do enjoy the giving. And that's always been a nice thing to do.

It's all about a balance between that and just seek the Lord. He'll give you some wisdom on that, no doubt. Hey, thanks for your call, Devin.

You're doing a lot of things right, my friend. We appreciate talking to you today. Well, let me say a big thanks to my team today. Thankful for Lisa and Amy and Dan and Jim, couldn't do it without them. Why don't you come back and join us tomorrow? We'll do it all over again. Bye-bye. Faith and Finance is provided by Faith Buy and listeners like you
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-11-25 04:43:24 / 2024-11-25 04:53:53 / 10

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