What Should I Leave to My Family? More than Money

Inheritance or passing things on to family tends to have the connotation primarily of financial wealth. However, aren’t there more important things you would want your family to have? You don’t need to be a billionaire to pass valuable things on to your family. In fact, we all will leave a legacy. It’s not optional. It's just about how intentional you will be with what you will leave behind. Let’s unpack the capital we all have to pass on to our families.

Passing on What Matters

When it comes to leaving a legacy, we define it as the emotional, social, spiritual, mental, and financial capital you pass to next generations. There are so many avenues within this definition to share things of value with your family. The keys to inheritance start right now in what you live as you teach values, cultivate relationships, and instill biblical insights that are all part of the broader capital you can pass on to your family.

So where do you start in this journey to creating an inheritance and legacy for your family bigger than just money?

Pass on the Capital through Stories

A simple starting point of how to pass on capital that is not financial is through sharing your family’s stories. The stories you share are a powerful way to teach the lessons of faith, courage, or other values that impact your family and to stir them to action. Learn more in our blog on Storytelling Keys to learn ways to share your stories.

The Emotional Capital of Stories

One of the reasons why we recommend starting with stories as a source of wealth and inheritance for your family is because of their power to inspire and draw your family close together. That shared sense of belonging and identity will build a strong culture today and provide a path for the future as well. It is more than a nice, passing memory; stories create connection for generations to come, so you are investing in the future.

The Spiritual Capital of Stories

As you consider what matters most to your family– its biblical values, spiritual heritage, scriptural insights– these are the things you want to be intentional to pass on. Your family’s inheritance needs a way to include these things, so stories are an easy way to begin this process. It is much more simple to package spiritual lessons using stories to illustrate them. Consider these examples:

• How you came to know Christ
• The time where your relationship with God became real to you
• A challenging circumstance that taught you a new lesson

These are just a few to get you started! Using these ideas to assess the stories your family has, you can uncover a whole new set of ways to pass on the spiritual lessons most important to your family. Use our guide here to identify your own stories.

Take Your Next Steps to Leaving a Legacy

This is only beginning to scratch the surface of how you can pass on what matters most to your family. It doesn’t have to wait until a deathbed moment. Live what matters now, and it will already begin to transfer to the next generation. 

Take inventory of your life and family history. What are the things you want to pass on? Or maybe what do you not want to be continued for generations and needs to change?

If you are looking for additional resources, you can find more teaching and helpful articles here.