Advisor Training – Biblical Stewardship Resource Library

As a central part of Taylor University’s Stewardship Planning Ministry, the Advisor Training is a unique opportunity for legal and financial advisors to learn sound biblically-based stewardship planning and strategies.

Tools & Resources On This Page:

Curriculum
Advisor Coaching Program
Advisor Referral Network

Advisor Training Curriculum

In the purple buttons below, view/download a PDF of each curriculum set. Links to each set are provided in the PDF.
Or, scroll below the buttons to view the curriculum online.

(SPP) Marketing a Stewardship Planning Practice

(PTS) Creative Stewardship Planning Tools & Strategies

(ESC) Effective Stewardship Counseling Methods

(PCS) Master Stewardship Planning Case Studies

The Advisor Training curriculum is available as online, on-demand video training with supplemental material provided. Courses feature video training, and include supplemental articles, resources and course handouts, which are available to download.

Below click a downward facing arrow to expand a category; click an upward-facing arrow to hide.

🎙The Biblical Basis for Stewardship and Generosity (SPP 100)

In this course we do a comprehensive review of the Old and New Testaments, highlighting the Scriptures that focus on stewardship generally and giving specifically. We cover over 400 verses in this class.

🎙How to Work With Your Clients’ Other Professional Advisors (SPP 200)

Your success in moving your clients to actual implementation of your planning recommendations depends largely on your ability to work effectively with their other professional advisors. In this course, we give you the timing and the process for how to build a high-trust/high-performing planning team of professional advisors.

🎙Becoming Your Clients’ Most Trusted Advisor / Setting Yourself and Your Practice Apart in the Overcrowded Marketplace (SPP 300)

How do you set up your practice and what services should you provide so that your clients will look to you first among all their advisors (attorney, accountant, insurance agent, money manager, etc.)? Trust has far less to do with experience or knowledge than it does with what you have to offer. In this course, those “high-trust” services will be given and unpacked.
With tens of thousands of advisors all hawking their wares, how can you set yourself apart from the noise and the competition? In this course, we discuss how to create a practice that is unique, of high value, and that will give you a marketing message that elevates you above advisors that are selling commoditized products and services.

🎙The Five-Phase Stewardship Planning Process (SPP 400)

A comprehensive stewardship planning process must address all five aspects of planning. The right emphasis on each aspect is critical to ensure the plan designed for clients is implemented effectively. In this class, we discuss the “quicksand” of implementation and how to avoid losing your clients in it.

🎙Helping a Family Evaluate Where They are in Their Planning / Learning How to Ask Critical Mental Angle Questions (SPP 500)

Have you ever talked to a potential client and been blown off with comments like: “Oh, we already have that taken care of” or “We already have an advisor who does that for us”? You know that you have 10 seconds to come up with a compelling response or the conversation is about to be over. This course outlines how to ask “critical mental angle” questions that can turn a potential client from “no interest” to asking for more information. Learn how to bypass a “having it all covered” response, helping clients reach the full potential of their financial plan.

🎙A Virtues-Based Approach to Planning (SPP 700)

There are three approaches to estate planning: a tax approach, a values approach and a virtues approach. In this course, we unpack all three and highlight why the virtues-based approach is the most effective and the most enduring.

🎙The Ten Unique Stewardship Dilemmas Affluent Christians Face (SPP 800)

In this course we look at the 10 unique stewardship dilemmas that affluent families face, and how to assist them in overcoming these dilemmas. People of more modest means have no idea these challenges exist nor do they understand how they could.

🎙The Collision of Biblical and Secular Worldviews in Planning and Giving / Are You Asking Your Clients the Right Questions? (ESC 200)

An advisor’s personal worldview has a massive impact on how he or she provides guidance. Tragically, even Christian advisors do much of their planning from a secular perspective because this is how they were trained. In this class, we identify where secular and biblical worldviews collide and provide practical examples of actual planning and giving outcomes.
If you ask the wrong questions, you will always get the wrong answers. In this course you learn not only how to ask questions, but how to ask the right questions that will provide a very effective path to optimizing how you serve your clients and the outcomes that are achieved.

🎙Answering the Three Foundational Planning Questions (ESC 300)

There are three foundational questions that need to be answered for a family to create a comprehensive and integrated plan. In this class, we discuss these questions and describe how to use them to help your client’s maximize strategic planning outcomes.

🎙Conducting a Client Discovery Retreat / Conducting Effective Family Meetings (ESC 600)

There is an old saying, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road is just fine.” One of the most critical aspects to effective planning is figuring out the “destination” before you start giving a client directions. In this course you learn how to conduct an extensive “Discovery Retreat” that lets you discover far more than just financial objectives. It will help you discover the two great motivators to action: problems to be solved and opportunities to be seized. The more you know, the better you can plan.
One of the most effective ways to avoid family blowups or meltdowns regarding plans is to make sure that the entire family is aware of what is being planned and why. In this course, you learn why and how to conduct regular, all-family meetings to get everyone on the same page and keep everyone on the same page going forward.

🎙Overcoming the Spiritual, Emotional, and Financial Obstacles to Generous Giving (ESC 700)

Most people, when asked if they would like to give more than they do, would say yes. So what is preventing them from doing so? There are a number of spiritual, emotional and financial obstacles that prevent people from being more generous than they are. If you know what these obstacles are, you can address them and quite often open a literal floodgate of giving that even the family never dreamed they could or would do. In this course you learn what those obstacles are and how to overcome them.

🎙Inheritance Planning and Heir Preparation (ESC 800)

Without a doubt, the most complex area of planning is inheritances. There is nothing more devastating than an ill-thought-out inheritance plan. In this class, we learn how to use “maturity markers” to help parents and grandparents objectively assess the readiness of their heirs to receive an inheritance. We will show you how to use an inheritance “fire drill” to determine the right amount of inheritance for each heir.

🎙Understanding and Using the Charitable Planning Tools (PTS 100A)

In this course we look at seven powerful charitable planning tools and their many variations and situations/transactions where they are powerful in optimizing planning outcomes.

🎙Understanding and Using the Traditional Planning Tools (PTS 100B)

This course highlights the traditional planning tools most commonly used in estate planning. We discuss how they work and which assets work best with each tool.

🎙Combining Various Tools to Optimize Planning Outcomes (PTS 200)

There are a number of powerful planning tools that can be utilized in the planning process, but when you can combine two or more of these tools into a single planning strategy, the results are “off the charts.” In this course, we show you how to effectively combine various charitable and non-charitable tools to supercharge the planning results you will achieve for your clients.

🎙Ten Creative Giving Strategies for Your Planning Toolbox (PTS 400)

In this course we consider 10 effective ways to give to the Kingdom besides cash. You will understand how the tools work and the amazing results they produce for the family and for the Kingdom.

🎙The Four Key Estate Planning Techniques in Stewardship Planning (PTS 500)

In this course we look at the four key estate planning techniques that should shape your work with clients: compression, freezing, leveraging and charitable. Each of these by themselves is very effective, but when you combine them the outcomes are truly extraordinary.

🎙Investing with Biblical Integrity (PTS 700)

Does God care how we invest His resources? This is a profound question that few Christian advisors consider. But as stewards of His resources, it is a question that we should be compelled to ask and to answer. In this course, you will see the biblical basis for this approach and how you can incorporate it with no reduction in total investment return.

All four of these case studies will give you a glimpse into real lives of affluent families. You will see where these clients were prior to comprehensive and integrated planning and where they ended up after it. The results are compelling and will excite and motivate your higher capacity clients or potential clients.

🎙CASE STUDY #1: THE BENNETT FAMILY (PCS 100)

🎙CASE STUDY #2: THE CRAIG FAMILY (PCS 200)

🎙CASE STUDY #3: THE PATTERSON FAMILY (PCS 300)

🎙CASE STUDY #4: THE MURPHY FAMILY (PCS 400)

“ I had the opportunity to take three extensive training courses with Jay in the last eight years. These courses opened my eyes to the significant need and exciting opportunity to deliver high level planning to Christians of financial capacity. Further it gave me the knowledge and confidence to perform such engagements. Jay’s knowledge and application of the Scriptures and advanced charitable strategies is a combination that I have not seen before or since. Jay is a passionate and energetic teacher and I found all of my time with him well worth the investment.”

Bob Korljan, CPA/PFS
Partner & President
Eaton-Cambridge, Inc.

“Jay’s depth of knowledge and wisdom in the areas of stewardship and planning have had an incredible influence on my life and my career. His commitment to bringing a biblical worldview into the area of planning for families of wealth, challenged and changed me, for the better, in ways I never expected. I was guilty of being a Christian planning for families from a secular worldview until Jay’s insight helped me to gain clarity about what it looks like to approach this business holistically from a biblical worldview.”

Eric Dunavant, CFP®/QKA™
President & CEO
Paradiem

“I have known Jay Link personally and professionally for over 10 years. Jay has been one of the handful of people that have had a huge impact in my life. Jay’s influence has quite literally transformed how I operate my practice. Jay’s teaching of biblical stewardship and philanthropic planning are a revelation inspired by God. Jay is one of the very few people that truly understands the biblical basis of stewardship and the technical aspect of planning from a Kingdom perspective. Jay teaches with passion, wisdom, and knowledge the principles and practices of true stewardship. I wholeheartedly recommend that any financial advisor that wants to transform their practice and/or continue to evolve their practice to be more aligned with God’s heart and His kingdom here on earth to engage with Jay whenever possible. I will always seek Jay’s advice and input as I continue to serve my clients.”

Paul Damon, CFP® CLU® ChFC® CAP® CEPA®
CEO & Founder
Stewardship Planning Partners

Advisor Referral Network

Our goal is to raise up committed, knowledgeable, and skilled advisors who live and practice their professions with a biblical worldview and focus on advancing the Kingdom of God. When Taylor encounters ministry partners who need assistance with their planning, we want to have a network of vetted and skilled advisors available to assist them with their personal stewardship planning. The on-ramp to becoming part of Taylor’s Advisor Referral Network is through completion of training webinars offered through the Advisor Training Ministry.

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