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I tell every church that I work with that I want to help them become more secure, effective, and efficient. One area where too many churches are vulnerable and insecure is in their financial position. I read a statistic recently and we'll be talking about it a bit more in future episodes that 61% of all church buildings in America house congregations that cannot financially maintain the building. That affects somewhere in the neighborhood of 200,000 churches. On top of that, one of the issues I unfortunately deal with somewhat frequently is the physical security of money and embezzlement. Financial insecurity intersects the law in so many ways. With deferred maintenance comes denied insurance claims. With dips in giving come missed debt payments and the possibility of foreclosure or bankruptcy.

Now I'm not an accountant or financial advisor, but I tell churches I work with that they need to have access to one and to develop a plan. Planned giving means different things in different circles, so let's define that a bit. Jim, what is planned giving?

Here are the high points of our discussion with Jim Sheppard:

What is planned giving?

Who should plan their giving to the church and who should pastors approach about planned gifts?

What are some things that churches can do to better cultivate a planned giving culture? Where have we fallen short?

What does the future of legacy giving look like?