The real challenge in estate planning is not the technical and financial part.  According to Roy Williams at The Williams Group, only 2 to 3 percent of failed estate transfers were caused by professional incompetence on the part of advisors, accountants, and attorneys.  The major cause of failure is the lack of preparing the heirs for assuming the responsibilities and benefits of wealth. Why is that? The results of interviews with 3,250 families showed the primary cause of failing to prepare heirs is a breakdown of trust and communication within the family.  “Parents were routinely decisive in dealing with business matters or in selecting their professional advisors.  But when…

  This blog is a little out of the ordinary for me, but a good friend sent me an article by Philip Jenkins with a provocative question. “Imagine you wanted to teach a course on Evangelical Christianity, past or present, what novels or similar texts might you use? One problem, of course, is for many years evangelicals had real doubts about the whole world of novels which they associated with frivolity or even immorality and that’s why there is no evangelical Jane Austen. On the other hand, Puritans like John Bunyan have a good claim to have invented the English novel as a genre – Pilgrim’s Progress or The Life and Death…

A friend who has a developed taste for politics but whose soul has not yet been taken over by the partisan body snatchers came by recently and dropped off a book that has helped me avoid the trap of cynicism and despair.  Like all of us who have had small children on road trips we are weary of hearing the kids call each other names point out minor infractions ("she's breathing on me again") and make us turn around countless times and warn them about "one more time and you are going to bed with no dessert tonight."  Of course ” I am not talking about small children.  I am talking…

  Twenty years ago it was likely the missions pastor in a church would have been a retired missionary older pastor or a member of the staff who had worked with seniors in the congregation.  While missions overall was extremely important to the church and denomination ” the decisions about missions and mission giving were fairly simple. Supporting denominational programs or a group of missionaries with strong ties to the church was routine.  There were a relative handful of churches whose mission programs were highly visible compared to the other ministries.  The typical staffing budgets were focused on youth” music ” education and periodic capital campaigns. That has changed dramatically. …

  John Gardner's books and essays on "Self-Renewal" have become classics and I for one hope they discover a whole new market among today's Millennials who are looking for meaning purpose and using their lives for something outside themselves.  Several times he cautions against becoming so good at something that we let other parts of ourselves atrophy and we "go to seed" because we have so focused on one area of our lives.  "Life is an endless unfolding and if we wish it to be an endless process of self-discovery an endless and unpredictable dialogue between our own potentialities and the life situations in which we find ourselves. By potentialities…

  As you walk down the hall to my office and look up to the right you will see a sign that says "Do what you love and you will never work a day in your life."  I put it there for a couple of reasons.  First to remind me how much I love what I do – and how little I like jobs.  Second ” because I seem to have more than a few people drop by and disclose they are not doing what they love. I like to have them get a little foretaste of what I am most likely to say before we are finished. I've probably…

Rodney King died recently and of course his most famous line was out of the riots that followed his beating and arrest. "People I just want to say you know can we all get along? Can we get along?"  While that line has been comic fare for years ” I ask myself that question all the time.  I don't like conflict or confrontation and living in the midst of tension drains me. While some like the action of Israel conquering the land of Canaan” I like the verse that goes "Then the land had rest from war."  That is exactly how I would have things end.  Happily ever after and everyone getting along.  Unfortunately that's not…

I received a call today from a friend with whom I’ve not spoken in a couple of years.  He has brain cancer and we were talking about the struggle.  He told me about a time last year when he thought he was going to simply give up and die because of all the complications and stress on him and his family.  I asked him why he didn’t give up and his response was a long pause and then “The presence of God.”  I heard the exact same response from another friend with cancer two days ago when I asked him what was keeping him afloat.  Time and again I have…