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How to Transfer Your Inheritance to Your Kids

I’m concerned about inheritance. Inheritance is the giving of what is valuable from one generation to the next. My kids are grown and my parents are dying. I’m at a stage where I’m asking, “What do I have that is valuable and how will I pass it on?” That’s why I blog. I’ve been blogging sinc…
By Seth Barnes

I’m concerned about inheritance. Inheritance is the giving of what is valuable from one generation to the next. My kids are grown and my parents are dying. I’m at a stage where I’m asking, “What do I have that is valuable and how will I pass it on?”

That’s why I blog. I’ve been blogging since 2005. That’s 3,000 posts – a lot of words. At an average of 500 words per post, that would be well over a million words. The equivalent of maybe 20 books.

If I can’t get it all said in a million words, then something is wrong. When I want to boil it down to essentials, the Bible helps. Look at Ezra 3. The focal point for the Israelites identity as a tribe was the temple and it had been destroyed. What to do? They decided to rebuild.

Weeping and shouting
 
It says, “many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise.”
 
They were happy in part because they had resurrected their inheritance. Before I die, I want to be a part of a community making that kind of noise! Weeping and shouting because inheritance is taking place.
 
In America, we used to have the village commons, a place where the town folk met to talk over the day. A place where they connected and found a common identity. Yes, we’ve got the internet and communities meet on websites, but we’ve lost the sense of belonging to one another that used to exist.
 
Jumpstarting Inheritance
 
We’ve experienced the breakdown of our inheritance process in America. My generation is failing to give what it values to our kids. And at least we need to talk about it.
 
The irony is that, though they are often not talking, my generation and my kids’ generation really want to connect.
 
I’ve been fortunate in that God has shown me how to connect deeply with others and with himself. It’s a secret I am actively giving away to others. It’s inheritance.
 
We have to leave pseudo-church if we’re to find the deep connection of real church. Pilgrimages in community are a fantastic venue for the deconstruction that must happen if we are to abandon the pseudo-church of our fathers. It’s the process Jesus led his disciples in. It still works, whether it’s called the World Race or something else.
 
The bottom line: Giving young people a venue and sometimes even the language with which to connect deeply jumpstarts the process of inheritance. We need the conversations that pilgrimages trigger that ultimately lead to inheritance.

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