JEsus is Calling me to give                      

planned giving

I didn't even have a will until I was 54 years old. It wasn't until an attorney offered me a free consultation on wills and estates that I discovered the sobering truth about where my assets would go if I dropped dead that very day. That got me off the dime!

I am not a wealthy woman, but I enjoyed planning where my compiled worth would go when I die, especially to close family members who live on the financial edge. Imagining them receiving that kind of gift from my life gave me joy.

Of course I included a 10% portion to the church because tithing has become a baseline practice in my life. Even though the church may change and become something quite different by the time I die, I know first-hand how indispensable the church community is for God's kingdom work in the world, so it was a no-brainer to build that into my will.

But now I am going to contact my attorney and make some changes. There are two reasons I feel compelled to increase the portion of my will that goes to Jesus' work in the world:

In my own personal life I have experienced the life-changing impact of bequests made to the church;

I want the decisions made at the time of my death to reflect what was most important to me in my life.

It is time to align my will with my deepest core values. I will still keep family members in the distribution, and hopefully they will still receive a gift from my life that is generous and greatly appreciated. But I'm guessing that what they end up spending their money on, most likely, will be perishables. In contrast, the money that goes toward Kingdom work will endure and multiply into eternity.

I don't know if you have heard of Eli Lilly, but before he died this chemist and his family's pharmaceutical company set up the Lilly Foundation, which has blessed millions in ministry, including you and me. A portion of their legacy has gone into sponsoring ways to build up the church, and I won a $45,000 sabbatical grant from that fund in 2003 and took a life-changing sabbatical in 2005. I could wax eloquent on the ripple effects of that experience for hours, but it has helped form the best parts of who I am and also the best parts of who Trinity is today.

Then there is the bequest left to Trinity by Gwen and Tas Hofer, which is still blessing this church even as I write. We were able to complete our multi-million dollar capital campaign and campus improvements debt-free because of their legacy giving. We have been able to hire TAG consulting to support us in our visioning this past year because of their legacy giving. The list goes on and on!

I thank Eli Lilly and the Hofers almost every week, because their legacy giving to the church is still transforming you and me.

It was only recently that I realized that 10% of my estate does not adequately reflect how important the ministry of Christ's church is in my life, and that I need to increase that amount. When I think of what gives me the most joy and meaning. When I think of what blesses others most. When I think of how much time and money and passion I invest now in ministry, 10% just isn't an accurate alignment with what I believe and treasure.

So, as soon as I finish writing this I will email my attorney and ask about updating my trust. I have already put it off too long, and writing this is God's way of saying, "Do it now," because you never know how much time you have to make decisions like that.

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