Episode Transcript

Austin
Estate planning can feel overwhelming, but not every decision carries equal weight. Some choices need to come first. As Christian stewards, we are called to manage God's resources with clarity, wisdom, and intentionality. Today, we'll walk through the five biggest estate planning decisions you should prayerfully prioritize. These foundational choices will help you build a plan that protects your family, furthers God's kingdom, and reflects your faith.
So, Spencer, today we're going to be talking about estate planning decisions as a steward. We're not going to go back and look through a lot of the foundational elements that we talk through about how much is enough. God owns it all. God is our provider. We've talked about those quite a bit. Normally to look maybe at an in-depth look at some of the scriptures that we're going to base these off, we're going to say, hey, we're building on that foundation that we've set before.
So if you have other questions about those things, feel free to look through our other videos. But the reality is today we're going to look specifically at what does it mean as a steward to create and to think about how do I plan my estate well? This world is not my home. I am simply a pilgrim. Here in my eternal home is with the Lord in his kingdom.
And so as a pilgrim, as a steward of these resources that God has placed in my hands here and now, how do I plan for those for when my life on this earth ends? So the first thing that we want to talk about, the first key point is decide who is the next steward and how much is enough for each of them.
So you want to talk us through what are we thinking about here?

Spencer
Well, we back up and like you talked about, we have decisions that we've got to make. How much is enough for us during our lifetime even how much is enough year to year? But then we say, okay, there's probably going to be a level of excess or a level of of margin. You know, they're in most financial plans.
So I want to think critically about how much is enough for each steward in the future there. We want to set some limits, because if there is a level of growth that goes beyond, say, a baseline level, we don't want to leave too much to any one individual or institution if it will harm them. We want to say, how much is enough there?
So prayerfully saying, okay, who is that next steward. Now as we think about the next stewards, what we want to push back against is the default of American culture, which is how many kids do you have? And you take your net worth and you divide it by the number of kids, and that's your estate plan. Let's just make sure that we get it into the will and any trust that might need to be there, so that it is done efficiently with a tax standpoint.
No... take a step back. That might be what God is calling you to. There's a decent chance, though, that he's calling you some other direction. So who is that next steward. And part and parcel of that question is how much is enough for that next steward. If we look at the scriptural, context, so often Jesus is saying, you are putting your lives at risk if you have too much, if you have that second barn, if you are accumulating.
And we need to be really, really careful with what we pass on, we never want to put our children or our loved ones in harm's way. You know, as a parent, that's one of the first things you think about every day is I don't want, you know, my toddler running out into the road. I don't want my kids to be put in a situation at school or in an athletic event where they're going to be really in harm's way.
Now, at some level, you know, all of us know that there's just risks out in the world, and we try to equip our kids for that, but really placing them in harm's way. So often we see people put their children, put their grandchildren in harm's way by the amount that is given to them. Yeah. And so we really again, this first question bears a lot more prayer reflection than oftentimes we see, the culture really raise when we go to it, which is who's the next steward and how much is enough for the next steward.
And if there's multiple, how much is enough for each?

Austin
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I think speak to the one of the key questions that Ron Blue continues to raise with us is that idea of we love our kids equally, so we treat them differently. The reality is how much is enough for one child maybe different than how much is enough for another child? And we've talked about this in tax planning before as well.
But if my one son is a doctor and another is a school teacher, there may even be ways to pass along resources that are in a raw number different, but actually a little bit more equal. And so we really think about this in a global perspective because my son that's a dog doctor may need a whole lot less than my son.
That's a teacher. And so we have to be looking at this and saying what do they really need? Is this going to benefit their souls? I think the other thing that we always have to come back to is what kind of when I pass along this inheritance, whatever it is, whether it is financial resources, access to a donor advised fund to allow them to be able to give charitably the spiritual vitality that I have in my walk with the Lord may not be the same as the spiritual vitality in their walk with the Lord.
And so we're not only passing along resources, but we have to be passing along wisdom along the way. We have to be thinking about, okay, what how am I raising them in such a way that they would honor the Lord with these resources?

Spencer
Right. So first point is who's the next steward and how much is enough. Second point is like you said, how do I need to equip that steward to better to be a better steward. You know, going forward. And so often it is helping them all along the path, understand the decisions that they'll probably have ahead of them and how to steward those resources as well.
Sometimes it's just that people don't have any background in managing a level of resource, and you know that they may need to manage those resources for ten or 15 or 20 years, because they may be a key part of their financial plan going forward. Sometimes it's that we need to be able to help our our subsequent steward know more about charitable giving and know about how to engage, you know, in that place and and even have a level of open handedness with that.
So each steward is going to have different, different things that we might need to help equip them. And whether it's the blocking and tackling of here's how investments are done, here's how you need to think through this. Here's the types of companies we want to stay away from. Here's the the level of risk that you might want to consider taking on all of that kind of equipping or the spiritual side of the equipping, which is how do I make sure that I am open handed before the Lord?
I'm not building that second barn, so on and so forth, because those things actually should trump just this idea of fairness, right? You know, and we have to deal with fairness, you know, because if we have children and they've imbibed the American cultural expectation that there's three of them and mom and dad have $3 million, and so everybody should get $1 million, then we need to have those conversations to level set.
If we're not going that direction. But we've got an even higher obligation to equip them in a different way so that when whatever they get, they are good stewards of of what they receive. Right.

Austin
And I think a lot of that comes back to as well, the communication that we're willing to have and instilling in our children a posture of gratitude if they know throughout our entire lives, mom and dad are incredibly gracious. They have a level of gratitude to what the Lord has provided. They've watched us be generous throughout our lives.
Then they prayerfully have embraced this idea of gratitude as well that they are thankful to the Lord that day in and day out. He provides us today our daily bread. And so as we we build into them this idea of gratitude. If we have a communication with them, we sit down and talk with them and say, hey, this is our estate plan.
We have $3 million. There's three of you. You're not each getting $1 million. You're getting enough to where? Maybe it helps you with X, Y, or Z. And if you want to pull that ahead, we can do that. But the rest of it is going to our church, these missionaries, things like that. We don't want to blindside them with those decisions.
We want to have those honest, open conversations so that they're prepared so they're not shocked. And then it may lead to a level of frustration with mom and dad.

Spencer
Right. And I think you point out an important thing. If we can pull those gifts forward oftentimes, then it softens that conversation. Because if if Mom and dad have not provided or not been generous with those resources during lifetime and then whammo, there's decisions that are made, kids that were not brought in and didn't understand any of it.
Then we're not equipping the next steward, but we're also blindsiding them. If instead we do more of our living and giving, while we're alive, then there's typically a level of conversation that needs to happen, there to begin with. And there's a level of willingness to understand Mom and Dad's priorities and maybe even embrace more of the stewardship mentality that they're, encouraging us towards.

Austin
Right. Well, I think that if we are able to live and give throughout our lifetimes and particularly be generous with those around us, then I think one thing that does is it releases the the death grip that I have on the resources that God has placed into my hands. If I'm able to open my hands up, then I may not be as concerned that I might outlive the resources that the Lord has helped me save.
Right? And the reality is, that is really a much more beautiful, open handed posture to have with the Lord, versus I'm afraid that I'm going to run out and I've got to keep it in my barn. Right. And so I think we just need to as stewards, as we make our estate plans, we make wise decisions. We try to make sure that we have enough through our lifetimes, but we can't ever guarantee that.
And so let's be open handed with it, with the Lord throughout our lives. So let's talk about our third key point. And this is really, as we start moving from those bigger macro decisions, we're starting to kind of get into the more granular decisions about, okay, we need to make an estate plan that has a will powers of attorney, things like that.
We'll get into that in another episode, but there's going to be decisions about who are agents. So walk us through some of these decisions and what we need to think about here.

Spencer
Well, an agent is someone that you're naming to act on your behalf. It's essentially a fiduciary, someone who will take what you've written in particular documents and then implement it when you're not able. Yeah. So this is important to consider because so often what we'll see is maybe a decision is made, but it's not revisited for ten years, 15 years, 20 years or a decision is made.
But the the contingent or a successor, you know, is not put in place in the event that something should happen. To, to one of the people. So what we want to do here is we want to prayerfully reflect on who's going to be the best people to help act on my behalf and implement this vision of stewardship.
Now, oftentimes, it is someone who we feel very, very aligned with as a steward. So it could be, a obviously a for a lot of married couples, it would be a spouse that would be that that primary person. But beyond that, it might be a sibling or a close friend who is trusted to act in that same trajectory.
Sometimes, though, our our family members or our closest friends don't hold the same perspective on these pieces. So then we have to ask ourselves a question do I want to name that person as agent because they're going to be running counter to maybe what their intuition is? Now they might still act on our behalf, and they might execute all of those things perfectly.
So, you know, if they're if they're one of these folks that really abides by, what they know we wanted and they're willing to do that, even though they might have different intuitions and they could be a good agent. But oftentimes we're looking for an agent that will act completely aligned, you know, with what we're going for there, whether it be a power of attorney that would be acting in your lifetime when you're incapacitated or not able to make decisions, whether it is an executor or executrix or a personal representative, as they're called in the state of Tennessee, who would act to fulfill your wishes within your estate, or whether it's a trustee that you've
named to manage a trust in each one of those, circumstances, you want someone that you implicitly trust to do exactly what you've laid out and even kind of be able to read between the lines, because you'll put everything that you can into a trust document or a will or, into your power of attorney. But again, this is where you'd like to have someone that aligns with your perspective, because if it's not listed and spelled out perfectly, they're going to have the intuition that, okay, this is what, this person would want.

Austin
Right, right. So I think, Spencer, one of the things that can come up is if there is maybe tension with a family member where there's not someone that makes the most amount of sense, you can hire an independent trustee. What does that look like?

Spencer
Well, for each one of these documents, it's a little bit different. For each one of these scenarios, it's a little bit different. So if you have resources and you're using a trust as your primary estate planning document, then you would use a trustee who would step in place. And there are trust officers that you can pay. There are trust companies that are independent, agencies.
You could hire an attorney that could serve as that trustee. That can be another good option. If we look at, the idea of hiring someone to handle the estate, if you put together a will and you name as your executor or executrix, an attorney, oftentimes that can help if there is tension within a family because he or she will then act as your agent.
They will act as the one that's that's, handling all of these different pieces and be able to move things forward now. It's a little bit more complicated when we think about someone acting on your behalf during your lifetime. This would be the case, for instance, if you lived in a place and didn't have, your power of attorney, you know, nearby, you might need to hire an attorney and sometimes a specialized attorney to act on your behalf to serve as that power of attorney.
So there are situations where that can make sense, and there are attorneys that really focus on elder law and being able to help in that space. That can be a really good fit there. But we again, that would be more unusual than just hiring an attorney, for instance, to, move through and serve as the personal representative or executor of the estate.
One of the things that we want to come back to, though, is that there are oftentimes difficulties, tension around settling in estate or moving assets into a trust. And having that trustee manage those resources when a patriarch matriarch passes away. It's, you know, there's nothing like, you know, money to pour gasoline onto a simmering fire, you know, and make it, much more explosive, make it much more difficult.

Spencer
So to the extent that we can engage, our heirs and next level of stewards earlier and unpack things, we can oftentimes deal with the tension, you know, up front. But if we can't and we know that this is going to be a difficult situation, oftentimes bringing in someone from the outside who we do trust and we do know will act on our behalf, can be helpful because it can keep, siblings who are heirs, you know, together and might be stewards, you know, of different sets of resources.
It can keep them from having a tremendous amount of tension and friction, because either they're both named as the power of attorney or as the executor or, that one is named and the other is not. And then there's there's a level of tension that can rise there.

Austin
And I think that's really where, considering our role as the steward of these resources or the steward of this estate plan of what God has placed in our hands, we need to say we need to look at kind of what Jesus talks about with conflict resolution and say, okay, are we able to do it together? Okay. No, there's significant conflict and we cannot do it alone.
Bringing in a mediator can often be helpful here. So it's really just wisdom in saying, okay, I recognize that my heirs have tension with one another. We've tried to resolve it. It's not been resolved easily when we've only been as a family here together at the table. Let me bring a mediator in. Maybe that mediators triangulated and all the anger gets pointed towards them.
But the reality is, if it preserves a relationship or it diffuses some of the tension of the relationship, maybe that's a better path to take.

Spencer
The reality here, the difficult point that we would come back to is if we're not able to resolve that conflict, and we are steward of these resources, it starts to get really hard to get excited about pushing significant assets to that next layer of stewards.

Austin
Who.

Spencer
Will not reconcile. Yeah. You know, and sometimes it's just on one side, the level of acrimony or the bitterness or what have you. But when we think about not owning the resources, they are God's we’re naming that next steward. And if we're not able to at least get them to a point, maybe everything is not completely mended.
But if we're not able to at least get back to a functional level, it really has to call into question that next capacity, of steward that we're looking at there. Do we want someone that's going to be just super angry? They handle significant resources now. They could be those that we pass on some amount of resources. It may be a smaller amount of resources relative to things, but a significant sum of resources to someone that is just so angry that they will not forgive.
Yeah, that that's a much more difficult question. Really and should be considered before we pass them on. Right.

Austin
And that really I mean, as we think about this, our next key point here is deciding the optimal path to distribute funds and given especially the beneficiaries involved. And so I think as we look at that, as we look at our estate, again, the more that we can do living and giving while we have breath in our lungs, the easier this becomes.
In some ways, because you're able to see, okay, yes, this person received these resources. It grew the bitterness. Or these person, this person received these resources that actually helped mend the relationship. They saw that mom and dad actually do love them. And they want they're good and they're gracious and generous. And maybe some of that unforgiveness starts to be resolved by seeing a different side of mom and dad.
Okay, now we're starting to, like, actually get to the point where, hey, let's look at an optimal path to distribute resources given each beneficiary involved. What are some other considerations here as a steward?

Spencer
So we think about three beneficiaries. As an example, let's say we've got one charitable institution. We've got a individual who has a marginal tax bracket that's higher, and then one that has a lower, tax bracket. You might be passing on pre tax resources first to the charity and then to the one with lower tax bracket.
And then kind of trying to pass on maybe more Roth resources, more after tax resources. Where possible to that one who has a higher, tax bracket there. And that just optimizes things so that you're passing less along to the US government and more along to, your chosen beneficiaries there. So we've got the tax piece of things, there, certainly.
But then we've also got an optimal path. When we think about the timing sometimes too, sometimes, beneficiaries need to have resources distribute it out over a period of time. If we have younger beneficiaries who are minors, that certainly would be the case oftentimes. But it might even be the beneficiaries that don't do as well in handling money.
And so, perhaps we pass along resources at different seasons, you know, to them and to your point, maybe we try to fast forward passing along some of those resources, especially during or in our lifetimes, to try to give them more and more experience and be able to coach them through that to the extent that they'll receive that.

Austin
Right? Absolutely. When I think about to the idea of if you have a significant donor advised fund that has resources in it, that you don't all want to go to the charities that you love immediately, you can name them as beneficiaries that they would receive assets immediately, but you could also name a successor. So let's say you've got, let's just say a couple hundred thousand dollars in a donor advised fund that was pushed from your IRA, that you don't immediately want to go to your church, or maybe you name a successor as the person that then takes over that donor advised fund.
They can then parcel those gifts out over a period of time as well. The reality here is it continues to be the question of is the steward of that donor advised fund prepared? Are they able to are they going to continue to manage those resources in a way that honors the Lord and honors what your wishes are? If that's not the case, maybe it's time to just release the funds and allow them to go to the beneficiary.

Spencer
Well, and that is a decision that everyone's got to make. There are challenges of deferring that decision, as you mentioned, and we've seen so many different circumstances where, people will put resources into a donor advised fund or have a, family foundation that they push resources to, and they think that there's an airtight set of institutions that could be given based on their particular values.
And the next generation's values are different, and they switch where those gifts go. And we've seen it go all kinds of different directions. There. So we've got to be really careful how long, you know, we push out those gifts. We would be of the mind more to yeah, let's let's make sure that if a decision is made, it's made in a timely basis, maybe within a few years, you know, if there's resources going out.
But the timing there is, is critical to consider.

Austin
Absolutely. Spencer, our last key point is communicate. And we've talked about this throughout the entirety of this episode. But the reality is it's really important to have clarity when you are communicating. This is why we're doing this as a steward of these resources that God has placed in our hands. This is why this person's getting it tax free.
This is why it's getting tax deferred. This is why this much is going to charity. We long for your spiritual vitality. We long for you to grow independence and gratitude on the Lord. And that's why we don't want to give you everything. If we're able to communicate that both as we get closer to the end of life, but also just throughout life, those conversations are easier as we're raising the next steward.
Communication is always critical throughout.

Spencer
Well, and I even think about this with my own kids. You know, and they're, ages ten through 16. But they might not like the decision that mom and dad make sometimes. But if we can frame it in a way of I've thought a lot about this, I care for you. I want your best. And here's the best that I believe that we're we're tacking towards in this decision.
And and here's the decision that we've made. Then at least the child, the loved one will know what your rationale was and your decisions, and you get an opportunity to get the blowback. Yeah. You know, they're not just cursing your grave. Yeah. You know, because you never had the conversation. Now, sometimes that can be a dicey conversation and sometimes that it can be really intense, even for months.

Austin
Right.

Spencer
But it gives you an opportunity actually to continue to shape that steward who is the next steward. And if they become intransigent to just say, well, maybe I need to revise this because maybe you're not supposed to be the next steward if you're going to have such anger, you know, for instance, that you didn't get quite as much as you were thinking that you get or at the timing or whatever, you know, that might just indicate that they're not at a maturity point where they need to meet the next steward, and that can be even harder.
But it gives us that feedback loop at a time that we can actually do something and continue to work for their good.

Austin
Well, Spencer, thanks for talking to us through some of these estate planning decisions. Next, we're going to talk about some documents that are really critical for a steward to consider. If you have questions about this clients, we would love to talk with you about your estate plan. Feel free to leave. Leave comments down below and we'll see you again next time.
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Disclosures
This content was provided by Second Half Stewardship. We're in Knoxville, Tennessee, and you can visit our website at www.Second HalfStewardship.com. The information in this recording is intended for general, educational and informational purposes only, and should not be construed as investment advisory, financial planning, legal, tax, or other professional advice based on your specific situation. Please consult your professional advisor before taking any action based on its contents.