No plan to wrest your personal financial health back from your debt holders and embark on a journey to financial freedom is complete without a written plan to determine the disposition of your estate when you no longer need it.

“No longer need it” is a nice euphemism for “when you die.” Death is the fate of all humans but Christians know that because of Jesus, death has no sting. (1 Cor. 15:55-56). And Clay Warf, executive director of the Baptist Foundation of North Carolina, knows that creating and then signing your last will and testament will not signal the grim reaper that you are now available for harvest.

January is “Make Your Will” month, an annual reminder that stewardship of the resources with which God entrusted you continues through the end and into eternity. Even people who don’t think their estate has much value typically have accumulated more than they realized.

Warf says if each Christian would at least tithe their estate to Christian causes many millions of dollars would be available for missions “until Jesus comes.”

As an example, he often tells the story of a previous study of wills probated in six North Carolina counties during one random month. Average size of the estates was a relatively small $44,200.

At the time the study found 149,000 senior adults on Sunday School rolls in those counties. If each had just an average estate, a tithe of those estates would have totaled $660 million.

Invested at five percent interest with the Baptist Foundation, earnings from that estate tithe would contribute $33 million annually for Christian causes until the end of human time.

Keep in mind that is approximately the annual income of the Baptist State Convention from 4,000 churches.

To secure bulletin inserts for Make Your Will month or to schedule a Foundation speaker to learn of many creative ways to fashion your estate plan to help your heirs and Kingdom causes, call (800) 521-7334.


Financial health package
Across three issues of the Biblical Recorder and numerous postings online, the BR staff compiled stories dealing with financial health, budgeting, teaching children about money, stewardship issues, etc. For a complete list, click here.