Stewardship & Giving Resources
God given guidance for your financial blessing.
| Give God a Raise The latest survey of FBC members revealed that our giving is averaging about 3.5% of income. Many of us would like to increase our annual percentage but find ourselves on a financial treadmill created months and years earlier by lifestyle choices and debt obligations not to mention the unanticipated needs that seem to show up at the worst times. Some people have the ability to decide that they are going to increase their giving by a significant amount and, as the Nike people say, “Just Do It”. If you are in this kind of a position, why wait? Just do it... But many of us don’t have the ability to make an immediate change in our budgets because our incomes rise gradually through raises and bonuses. Why not take the next 7% increase or bonus and direct half of it to the giving side of the budget? This one step will double the giving share of most budgets and still allow for lifestyle improvements! Do this for two or three years, and you might find yourself in the 10% giving bracket wondering why you weren’t doing this before... Considering what most of us have done this year compared with what God has done, who should get the raise? |
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| Make Every Day Grandparents’ Day! Every one of us would consider it a good investment to support the church that our children and grandchildren will be attending. If we only knew which church body would be equipping them to impact their arenas of influence, which church body would be influencing their walk with the Lord. Well, since our membership is so young, most of us don’t even know if we’ll even have any grandchildren, much less whether they will be part of any church body. If only we could see into the future... But here is where it gets interesting… There are some people who are now in that future. They aren’t us. They are our parents and grandparents. They can see their children and grandchildren being spiritually fed, trained, equipped, encouraged, educated right here at Fellowship Bible Church in Roswell, Georgia. For them, here is an investment in their children and grandchildren for sure. No guesses. Why not ask them to give to FBC versus giving to you? |
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| What kind of Company is Acme Life Anyway? Remember that good size life insurance policy your parents took out back when you didn’t even have your drivers’ license? Some life insurance agent told them that they needed to “protect your insurability.” Problem is that they also thought that a $5,000 policy was a big deal. By now it probably seems about as big as the old letter sweater you wore in high school. But even old life insurance policies have their good points. For one thing, there is a cash value. This might just be the perfect asset to give. In fact, depending on your age, the cash value might be equal to as much as half of the death benefit. So dust off those old policies and tell mom and dad that you found a way to collect on your life insurance and live to tell about it! Not only can you tell about it, you can even get a tax deduction. |
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| Invest in Eternity or Retirement? Many of us have the opportunity to divert some of our income into tax-deferred retirement plans such as 401(k) plans, IRA’s or in some cases pension or profit sharing plans. Many of these plans are especially attractive because the employer matches all of a part of our contribution. These matches make some very attractive returns, but it is doubtful that they exceed the 100 fold returns talked about in Matthew 13:23 that accrue on eternal investments. Why not redirect some of your retirement funding to invest in eternity? They are both tax deductible. Maybe instead of funding the 401(k) to the max, you cut it in half. Or instead of funding your IRA one year you give the money away. It is incumbent on each of us to prayerfully think through this area and potentially reconsider our investment in light of how we have been prospered (2 Cor. 9). Invest in POSTERITY rather than a retirement plan of stocks and bonds. No IRA in 2006 = $4,000
Note: you may want to consider continuing to fund your retirement vehicle because of the matching and tax-deferred status and instead redirect other savings/assets in a like amount to posterity.Redirect 401 (k) funding for 1 year Half = $7,500 All = $15,000 Redirect deferred contribution profit sharing Maximum per year is $44,000 |
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| Savings and Investment Accounts Many of us have money market accounts, savings accounts, and investment accounts that we have accumulated over the years. This money may have come from a bonus, an extra good year, from saving little by little and in many cases from in inheritance from parents or grandparents. The question each of us needs to ask is “Why do I have what I have in savings?” Does God want me to give any of that to meet a need at this time?” Maybe we have what we have for such a time as this. Consider giving away 10-50% of what is sitting there. How about giving away the earnings or half the earnings? Invest it in a vehicle for eternity!
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| Gifts in Kind One of the most overlooked ways you can give is through a “gift in kind,” a direct gift of something other than cash but which the church can convert to cash. You receive a tax deduction for the full value of the gift, no matter what you paid for it. What gifts in kind are best? Stocks and bonds. But don’t forget other assets that can be sold such as parcels of land, jewelry, mutual funds, cars, even that painting you inherited but never really appreciated. Just remember that the church must be willing to accept your gift in kind and the value recovered in the sale is the value you should be reporting when you take the tax deduction. For example, let’s say you are holding $10,000 of Coca-Cola stock for which you paid $1,000. Great investment..., But if you sell it, you will probably only keep $7,500 after taxes. Instead, if you give your shares to Fellowship Bible Church, the church can sell the stock for $10,000 and you can deduct the entire $10,000. This will result in a typical tax savings of $3,000 - $4,000 which is only $3,500 - $4,500 less than you would have received if you sold the stock. Thus your gift of stock really costs you only $3,500 - $4,500 and the church benefits by $10,000. And Home Depot stock works the same way... |
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| Appreciating What Just Appreciated Do you own an appreciated asset? Have any of your assets actually gone up in value? This could be anything from the $10 stock you took the big chance on to the $50,000,000 company you are ready to sell, or even that lot at Big Canoe you never did anything with. Visit our website for help on how you can maximize your stewardship through creative gifting of assets. There are ways to turn these assets into lifetime incomes without paying any capital gains taxes. There are other strategies that simply help you implement your current charitable giving objectives using these assets instead of cash. Whatever your goals, before you sell an appreciated asset, make sure you know the alternatives. * These are just a few of the many creative ways to become a giver regardless of your financial situation. The purpose of this list is simply to stimulate your thinking about other ways to save and give, but is not meant to be exhaustive. We’re praying that God will give each of us wisdom as we consider our personal giving opportunities. |
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| We Can All Be Givers... Take a look at these figures and see how much you could be recouping to give.
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