Leaving money to your church

[Lamb]

Have you thought about, or have you already planned to leave money to your church when you pass?

 

[tango]

Have you thought about, or have you already planned to leave money to your church when you pass?

I haven't been at my current church for long enough to really think about it.

At my previous church I made the specific decision not to leave them money in my will. The reason for that was simple - at the end of the year the standard procedure was that if there was money left over the church would keep a certain percentage of the annual operating costs in reserve and give the rest away. Although I could honor the view that a church sitting on growing reserves while local needs went unmet was perhaps not the best stewardship it did sometimes seem that the idea was to give the money away as quickly as possible, which often meant handing relatively large sums to national and internation bodies. Therefore leaving the church money would be equivalent to leaving money to those external bodies, and if I was going to leave money to charitable causes I'd rather specify them for myself, and choose local causes that I support while I'm alive.