Alabama Baptists are among the most generous believers in Baptist life, but in many cases, that generosity ceases when a giver dies. The message of The Baptist Foundation of Alabama (TBFA) is that a Kingdom-focused estate plan is a final act of stewardship that has lasting impact.
Barry Bledsoe, TBFA president, uses a penny jar analogy to illustrate the possibilities. The average American’s net worth is 10 percent cash (the small jar) and 90 percent non-cash (the big jar), tied up in assets like real estate, financial investments and insurance, Bledsoe said. Only 4 percent of gifts to the Church come from those big-jar assets, which are often liquidated and distributed after an individual’s death as inheritance gifts. The Church rarely receives a portion of that inheritance.
“There are many strong believers who are good stewards for the Kingdom who have never thought about that,” Bledsoe said. “As a body of believers, the majority of us have ignored the big jar. But if you conclude that the Bible says God owns everything, that doesn’t include just the small jar — it includes everything. We’re either giving our resources to Kingdom work or we’re passing them on to the next generation to steward them.”
Helping Alabama Baptists consider the potential impact of the big jar is the mission of TBFA. Through the foundation’s Legacy Ministry, Bledsoe and his staff are working to equip pastors and churches to help church members make an estate plan through the lens of biblical stewardship.
“Pastors are the gatekeepers,” Bledsoe said. “We would love for every single pastor in Alabama to take advantage of the estate planning service we offer free to each of them. We want them to see the value of this personally and for those who want to honor the Lord through their estate plan, to see the value of this as an act of stewardship.”
In turn, Bledsoe hopes pastors who have a good experience with the process will encourage their church members to learn more too. Once people learn about the possibilities for legacy giving, many volunteer to learn more, he said.
That’s what happened with James and Jerilyn Smith, of Dadeville. James Smith serves as director of missions for Tallapoosa Baptist Association and his wife is the associational ministry assistant. Their ministry history also includes time spent overseas with the International Mission Board (IMB).
The couple made a will prior to leaving for the missions field and then updated the document a few years later using a home computer software program. Jerilyn Smith said she was never certain that the will they did on their own would be recognized as legal, so when she and her husband heard about TBFA’s Legacy Ministry, the opportunity made sense.
‘Peace of mind’
“It gave us peace of mind to have our wills done professionally and to get advice on how to best take care of our assets and our children the way we wanted to,” she said. “We really appreciated that they were able to show us ways that the ministries we wanted to remember could get the most benefit from our gift without paying unnecessary taxes, which also preserved more for our kids and benefitted them as well.”
Jerilyn Smith said she also appreciated that Philanthrocorp, the estate planning organization that assists TBFA clients with planning services, did not try to direct them toward any specific ministries or amounts. Instead the estate specialist from Philanthrocorp guided them through the process by asking and answering questions and allowing them time to think about each decision along the way.
Bryon Swanson, an estate specialist with Philanthrocorp, said the mission of his organization is to get at the heart of what the family wants to accomplish in an estate plan and then provide them the resources to get their documents in order.
‘Expertise of the tools’
“We have the expertise of the tools and rules of estate planning, so we help our clients formulate what best sets their children up for success and, if they choose, meet their baseline desire to do something for ministry,” Swanson said.
Philanthrocorp estate specialists bring ideas to the table and help clients gain an understanding of what is possible, Swanson said. There is no deadline, so clients have time to think about each step of the process.
“Typically we have a few conversations scheduled at the pace of the client’s family. We make it simple by having conversations and chopping it up into pieces that are easy to accomplish. Then everything we discuss gets followed up in writing,” Swanson said. “What it boils down to is removing the anxiety out of the process and making what many people consider to be a complex process simple.”
The Legacy Ministry has become a focus of TBFA because the management of legacy gifts is the other major role the foundation plays in Alabama Baptist life, Bledsoe said. Directed legacy gifts from Alabama Baptists fund a variety of Baptist entities, churches and cemeteries. Gifts also fund the foundation’s elder care ministry, which assists approximately 80 seniors in the state, as well as several annual scholarships.
The foundation awards more than $800,000 in scholarships each year primarily, though not exclusively, to students studying at Baptist schools, Bledsoe said. He noted one scholarship that is for engineering students at Auburn University and others that are for nurses attending any college. Another major scholarship program helps people who want to be “world changers for Christ” by getting a law degree or master’s degree in business. Regardless of the purpose of the gift, TBFA is committed to managing the assets in a way that honors both the giver and the Lord.
“Through the years, Alabama Baptists have passed on and have left gifts dedicated for the purposes that were near and dear to them,” Bledsoe said. “We are passionate about serving them well as we administer their gifts and take care of their trust in a God-honoring way.”
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