By Rev. James R. Cook, CFP®, RICP® You might have heard retirement referred to as “the golden years.” Some people view retirement as a chapter in life when they can spend more time with family, on leisure travel, or starting a new hobby. Some retirees engage in activities they’ve always wanted to do but never had time to pursue while working. Managing your finances in retirement is crucial to ensure a comfortable and financially secure life after you stop working so your golden years can truly be golden. Here are some key steps and considerations you can look at now to help you manage your finances effectively later during retirement. 1. Assess your financial position Before you embark on your retirement journey, it’s crucial to take stock of your financial situation. Evaluate your sources of income, including pensions, Social Security, investments, and any part-time work you might engage in. Create a comprehensive list of your expenses, categorizing them into essential (housing, healthcare, groceries) and discretionary (travel, hobbies) categories. This assessment will provide a clear understanding of your financial inflows and outflows. 2. Create a realistic retirement budget Once you have a clear picture of your finances, create a realistic budget that aligns with your retirement goals. Strive to strike a balance between meeting essential needs and enjoying leisure activities. The 4-percent rule is a commonly used guideline that suggests withdrawing 4 percent of your initial retirement portfolio annually, adjusting for inflation. However, your unique circumstances might necessitate a different approach, so it’s crucial to tailor your budget to your needs. 3. Social Security planning Understand when you become eligible for Social Security benefits and how different claiming strategies can impact your monthly benefit amount. Delaying your benefits can result in larger monthly payments, so consider your individual circumstances before deciding. The minimum age to start claiming your Social Security income is 62. However, if you do not need the income and can afford to delay your benefits until your full retirement age, postponement might be beneficial. Claiming benefits before full retirement age will reduce your Social Security income. Keep in mind that full retirement age varies based on your birth year. Be sure to check the social security website to verify your full retirement age (https://www.ssa.gov/prepare/plan-retirement). 4. Plan for healthcare costs As you age, healthcare expenses are likely to increase. It’s essential to plan for medical costs, including insurance premiums, deductibles, and potential long-term care expenses. Medicare is a fundamental component of healthcare in retirement, and you need to research it and enroll in it at the appropriate time. However, Medicare doesn’t cover all your needs, so it’s important to consider supplemental health insurance (make sure you understand the differences between Medigap and Medicare Advantage) and long-term care insurance to cover potential gaps in coverage. Budgeting for healthcare costs will prevent unexpected financial strain down the road. 5. Manage debt wisely Entering retirement with substantial debt can impede your financial freedom. Strive to pay off high-interest debts before retiring, as interest payments can erode your savings over time. Credit card and other outstanding debts should be strategically managed to ensure that your retirement income isn’t disproportionately consumed by repayments. Some steps to take to manage your debt include: • List all your creditors (except your mortgage creditor), the amount owed to each, the interest rates, and monthly minimum payments. • Re-order your debts according to which you want to eliminate first. • Now attack debt no. 1, repaying as much (more than the minimum) as you can each month until it’s gone while paying minimums on the rest. Then attack debt No. 2. Keep going until all your debts are gone. The key to success: don’t build up new debts while paying off the old ones! 6. Emergency fund Maintain an emergency fund to cover unexpected expenses, such as medical bills or home repairs. Having a safety net can help prevent you from dipping into retirement accounts prematurely. Most experts recommend having enough saved to cover your living expenses for three to six months. Be sure to consider both fixed and variable expenses when determining how much you need to save. Emergencies can happen at any time, so you need to be able to access your funds quickly. A savings or money market account with low fees and a low minimum balance requirement is the perfect place for your emergency funds. You should also try to find an account with a competitive interest rate so that your money can grow over time. Always keep your emergency fund separate from any accounts that you use daily. This practice makes it clear that one account is for spending and one account is for saving. And definitely don’t put your emergency funds into high-risk investments, such as the stock market; you need to know your money is going to be there when you need it. 7. Lifestyle adjustments Be prepared to adjust your lifestyle if necessary. If your expenses exceed your income, you might need to cut back on discretionary spending or explore part-time work opportunities. 8. Tax strategy Understand how different types of retirement income are taxed and develop a tax-efficient withdrawal strategy. Depending on your situation, it might be advantageous to withdraw from different accounts in a specific order to minimize your tax liability. Make sure to speak to your financial planner and tax professional for guidance. 9. Investment strategy Review and adjust your investment portfolio based on your risk tolerance, time horizon, and financial goals. While you might want to reduce risk as you age, it’s important to maintain a diversified, balanced portfolio that still provides growth potential to outpace inflation, because inflation can erode the purchasing power of your retirement savings over time. Diversification can help mitigate risks and maintain steady returns. A diversified mix of stocks, bonds, real estate, and other assets can help you weather market fluctuations while preserving your retirement savings. Diversifying involves investing in assets that respond differently to the markets. When stocks Read More >

  By RaeAnn Slaybaugh With a combined 25 years of experience working with Philadelphia Insurance Companies (PHLY) and its church clients, Risk Management Vice President Andrew Shockey and Underwriting Human Services Product Manager Michael Nester know background checks. First and foremost, they know that not enough houses of worship are conducting them — and why. Additionally, among the churches that are doing background checks, Shockey and Nester are familiar with the screening loopholes offenders can use to take advantage of these trust-fueled organizations. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Better yet, church leaders don’t have to go at it alone to do better. From the in-the-trenches perspective of PHLY’s Risk Management Vice President Andrew Shockey, background checks should be considered a standard of care in today’s churches. And it already seems to be, for some positions — for clergy members with access to the church’s funds, or for volunteers who will work with children, for example. Encouragingly, this even appears to be the case for volunteers who might only serve in the children’s ministry for a short while. Case in point: vacation Bible school. “So, yes, there are churches doing background checks right and well,” Shockey acknowledges. “Overall, I see the Church moving in that direction. We’re just looking to speak to a good many that need to do a little bit better.” Michael Nester, PHLY’s Underwriting Human Services Product Manager, agrees. “Some churches list it on the applications we receive,” he points out. “In fact, I like to think that maybe more churches are doing it. “At any rate, the practice of screening volunteers who work with children definitely needs to happen,” he adds. “It’s something that we hope to see even more of.” BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE IMPLEMENTATION To understand how church leaders can elevate their background check process, it’s important to first understand where and why they’re falling short. As Shockey explains, it comes down to a handful of common factors. COST Not surprisingly, the expense of background checks can be a hindrance for many churches. In fact, it appears to be the primary barrier to their regular, consistent implementation. “The Church is still under tremendous financial pressure from COVID,” Shockey says. “It’s still recovering from that.” TOO MUCH TRUST “In talking to churches around the country, I still hear that they’re not conducting background checks at the level they ought to be because, ‘We’ve known these people forever’ or ‘We grew up together,’” Shockey says. While he acknowledges that this mindset is understandable, he also emphasizes that it shouldn’t be the end of the conversation: “This kind of thinking comes from a good place, but churches need to understand the risk and do background checks, anyway.” TIME, ENERGY, EXPERTISE Obviously, a background check needs to be read and processed when it comes back. But who should be doing that work? What does it entail? And if a red flag does pop up, what’s next? “When the results don’t say ‘Clear’, it requires time and resources,” Shockey points out. “Unfortunately, both are so limited in a church of any size.” GLOSSING OVER THE FINE PRINT As Shockey and Nester have made clear, simply conducting a background check isn’t enough, despite the best intentions. When working with any third-party background checks provider, it’s also important to read the contract. “What they charge is indicative of the effort they’re going to exert to locate records,” Shockey advises. “The fine print answers the question: What am I asking them to do in exchange for my payment? Usually, the more effort, the higher the cost.” For instance, conducting a background check on a senior or executive pastor should involve multiple sources — perhaps including a credit check since he or she will be involved in financial decisions at the church. This might be more expensive than a background check done for a week-long VBS volunteer. [W]e’re just trying to help churches know what’s actually law before they find out the hard way. I can’t think of a state that’s really ‘stuck’ — they all seem to have a forward motion to their legislative environment on this topic, for all the right reasons. Protecting innocent children is typically a bipartisan issue, thank goodness. — Andrew Shockey ELUSIVE DATA Unfortunately, even if a background check is done correctly, offenders can move from state to state — and the data that might show up in one state might not show up in another. “In the Church, there have been many painful examples of something like this,” Shockey says, citing Ban the Box legislation as a driver. Simply put, after a certain number of years, a state might require that a certain offense be eliminated from a background check. “Though it’s a sensitive issue for people on both sides of the argument, the concept — that someone can integrate into society once they’ve paid their debt — is grounded in a lot of very good reasons,” Shockey says. “While I think it’s well-intentioned, I’m also saying that the criminal element always looks to exploit areas of trust. And those are certainly prevalent in churches.” “Whereas all are welcome into the Church, who’s allowed to serve as a youth leader or parent volunteers, is a very different question,” he adds.  “The point is this: even when a church has obtained a ‘clear’ background check on an individual, it doesn’t necessarily mean nothing of concern has ever happened,” Shockey concludes. “While I don’t want to cause alarm for church leaders — as there are reasonable solutions — a background check is a minimum standard of care and must be conducted.” But it’s far from the only thing that needs to be done. LEADING THE WAY, TOGETHER  To this end, comprehensive sexual abuse prevention training is among the most effective things a church can do that might not be required by law. Fortunately, PHLY has made this training and related resources readily available, thanks to a decades-long partnership with MinistrySafe, a Complete Child Safety System designed Read More >

STEWARDING MEDIA FOR MINISTRY: How Without Walls Church streamlined content creation with creative.space By RaeAnn Slaybaugh For 15 years, Jeff Watkins’ involvement at Without Walls Church in Mesa, Ariz., has grown exponentially. In 2010, he started out as a volunteer. In 2013, he was enlisted as a contractor. Finally, in 2017, Watkins was brought on staff as the full-time production director. Little did he know that his job would change drastically — almost overnight — when COVID struck just a few years later. Pre-pandemic, content production was essentially non-existent at Without Walls. “I’m not saying that it wasn’t important; it just wasn’t something that our church culture had grasped a hold of yet,” recalls Production Director Jeff Watkins. “It just wasn’t a focus for us.” As providence would have it, Lead Pastor Ken Dutton felt a call two weeks prior to the pandemic’s onset to lean into expanding the church’s online presence. “He told the board and church leadership: ‘I feel like there’s something there. I don’t know all the answers, but I think there needs to be some investment,” Watkins remembers. “So, we made that investment and — fast forward a few weeks — COVID.” At the time, Watkins says he “knew nothing” about the content production. Fortunately, he could be honest about his misgivings, as Lead Pastor Dutton is his father-in-law. (Watkins’ wife, Tiffany, serves as Executive & Worship Pastor.)  “Given this dynamic, communication can be a lot freer sometimes,” Watkins says. “It can also be a lot more direct on the opportunity side. And this was definitely an opportunity.”  Like all opportunities, this one came with a cost: 86 days straight of studying, training and testing. Many of these workdays lasted between 12 and 20 hours. “It was insane, but it was necessary,” Watkins recalls. “By that point, with COVID, embracing the learning curve was our only option.” What grew out of necessity quickly identified itself as a blessing. Although Watkins says the content produced early on left something to be desired in terms of professional quality, he adds: “People’s lives were still getting touched. We learned really quickly that there’s a lot of ministry that can happen there.” As the months passed and the need for more and more content presented itself, Watkins and his team became increasingly adept at producing it. They dialed in on what comprises quality content — not just in general, but for Without Walls, uniquely.  “I say that because what it looks like for us, is probably different than what it looks like for the church down the street,” he says. “Is it just a live stream? Are there social aspects to this? That’s when it really blew up.” True to form, in the past five years, weekly online attendance has grown from zero to 400. Last year, the church reached more than 4.5 million people with its online offerings. This translates to more than 75 months of consumed content in 2024 — a figure that exceeds the church’s goal 25 times over. “I’m not talking about ‘likes’ on a photo; we don’t even count that,” Watkins explains. “It’s also not including the live stream; I’m talking about content that’s been consumed, whether that’s a Reel on Instagram, a YouTube video after the fact — basically, everything that’s not ‘live’ but that we can track.” Back-end production needs take center stage With the amount of technology being added to meet rapidly growing content production needs, storage was becoming a real issue at Without Walls. Up to that point, Watkins and his team would buy hard drive after hard drive — about 75 in all — at hundreds of dollars apiece. The complications associated with the abundance of equipment, spread out over multiple spaces, came to a head when Pastor Dutton was preparing to revive and revise a message from a few years prior. He asked the production team for that footage. “I had to say, ‘Pastor-in-Law, we don’t have that content,’” Watkins admits. That’s because the video which the pastor was looking for was hosted on Vimeo — an account the church canceled when it moved to other platforms. Effectively, the footage had disappeared. It was a tough, but pivotal conversation. “Pastor said, ‘You’re telling me that everything from ‘X’ date and prior is gone?’ And I admitted, ‘Yeah, that’s kind of where we are,’” Watkins recalls. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault; but again, we knew nothing other than that we needed to keep up with all this stuff. That’s why we had all these hard drives everywhere.” It was decided: this couldn’t happen again. The team invested in network-attached storage (NAS) devices. “NAS is a storage space that’s on site — kind of like a really large hard drive that multiple people can access,” Watkins explains. “But there were hurdles.” Namely, it was clunky — not always reliable; plus, accessibility proved tricky. Still, the team was moving fast and made it work for several years. Fast-forward to eight months ago, when … A much better solution emerged. On that day, the RED Digital Cinema team was onsite at Without Walls Church doing a ‘demo day.’ The church uses several of the provider’s cameras; however, the event also debuted and demonstrated new, related products. Church production and worship teams from the community were invited to come by, put their hands on the products, see the latest and greatest functions in action, and have a representative from RED walk them through it all. The DigitalGlue team was one of the providers on hand that day, demonstrating their proprietary managed storage solution, creative.space. “I’ll be honest, I’d never heard of them,” Watkins says. “But throughout the demo day, people kept telling me to check them out.” After spending an hour talking with one of the creative.space experts, Watkins was intrigued by the product and impressed with the gentleman’s depth of knowledge about the storage solution. A few weeks later, a larger conversation took place. “We’re not a 5,000-member church; we’re around the 1,500-member Read More >

  Walking in the footsteps of Jesus in the land of the Bible is the ultimate hands-on disciple-making experience for Christians — not just a vacation to a destination related to church.  Educational Opportunities Tours (EO) President/CEO James Ridgway recently interviewed Rev. Tom Smith about how Holy Land journeys have changed lives and inspired the faith of people who traveled with him in the Holy Land. James Ridgway: How did your first Holy Land journey influence your life and ministry? Rev. Tom Smith: It’s safe to say that it began to affect me even before I returned home. But the immediately noticeable influence was the way that it affected my preaching and teaching. I found myself painting word pictures of a passage of Scripture as I would preach or teach. I would give little tidbits of what it means to go ‘up’ from Jericho or the winds affecting the Sea of Galilee as they funneled into that area. It was like I had an entirely new resource to add to my library as I prepared for a sermon or class. Ridgway: When did you decide to start taking groups to the Holy Land? How did the people respond? Smith: I went the first time without a group. But after returning, my excitement was obvious. I talked about it constantly.  As soon as I was introduced to Educational Opportunities and learned of how I could ‘earn’ a trip, I decided to go back and take as many people as possible. As soon as I mentioned that I was putting a group together, people started signing up.  A journey to the Holy Land is in the hearts of a lot of people — not as a vacation but as part of their faith development — so there was natural interest in participating. Folks were excited that they could travel with me because they trusted me as their pastor.  Ridgway: Afterwards, what did you see in the lives of those who experienced the Holy Land? Smith: They were changed. They engaged with Scripture differently. They talked about the way they heard the sermons differently. They began to participate more readily in Sunday School, study groups or accountability groups. Many of them became more open and expressive of being leaders in the congregation. They have a renewed/revitalized faith, it seems.  Ridgway: What other benefits come from the Holy Land journeys? Smith: One of the things was how close the group became. They bonded with each other as they shared the experience.  They also bonded with me, as their pastor, differently. Instead of hearing me teach or preach a couple of hours per month, they spent 12 to 14 hours a day talking and experiencing this profoundly moving journey. We formed some truly lasting bonds.  They also came back with a deeper understanding of the current issues facing people in the region. They experienced not just what the news media shared, but what they themselves saw. They could ‘put a face’ to it, and it opened doors/eyes in a way that nothing else could do. Ridgway: How does a pastor plan a journey to the Holy Land?  Smith: There are two ways a pastor could begin this journey.  First, they could participate in an EO Familiarization tour. After experiencing the Holy Land personally, they could start planning a group journey. Personal experience helps while recruiting a group.  The second way is to jump right in and organize an EO Holy Land journey for their group by going to www.eo.travelwithus.com and reviewing the different itineraries offered and finding one that best suits what they and their folks would love to see. Then, they can reach out to the EO team to partner and build the journey that will help make disciples for Jesus Christ. The EO staff will provide all the tools necessary — including ongoing support — to build a life-changing tour for the congregation.