“…Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!” Matthew 13:8 Respond to God’s bountiful grace with a lasting legacy of gratitude to God and God’s Church.
What is the Legacy Fund?
The Legacy Fund is a permanent endowment established in 2012 to provide the long-term financial security of Westminster for generations to come. The Legacy Fund accepts current and planned gifts from donors. The Legacy Fund plays a key role in supporting the church’s mission and ministries that are often outside the annual budget or that may enhance the gifts from the church budget. It will also provide security for unforeseen expenses in the future such as sudden capital expenses and adverse financial circumstances.
The Legacy Fund Trustees invite you to prayerfully consider what part you could play in this Legacy of partnering across generations. A will is the cornerstone of a well-organized estate plan and can proclaim your Christian faith, demonstrating your response as a faithful steward to future generations.
Frequently Asked Questions
For a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), please click here.
More Questions?
For specific questions, please contact: Donovan Drake, Pastor and Head of Staff, 615-292-5526; Jo Ann McFarlin, Church Administrator, 615-292-5526, or the current Chair of the Legacy Fund Board of Trustees.
Members Only Section
Member Stories
The Love That Continues
With a twinkling smile, Susan Baughman went about her work at Westminster. Her strong faith compelled her to give of herself in any way possible through volunteering and filling any needs she saw. She was everywhere and into everything around the church. When she moved to Knoxville to be with her family, there was certainly a void to fill. In her prayer she selected for her memorial service were the words “give me a servant’s heart”. This seemed to be her mantra. Susan is still here through her years of work at Westminster, and now through her Legacy Fund contribution. Her love for this church and her volunteer spirit continues through her planned gift.
The Legacy Fund Trustees invite you to prayerfully consider your ongoing love for this church and its missions. The Legacy Fund is a permanent endowment to provide long-term financial security of Westminster. Distributions support activities central to Westminster’s mission that are outside the annual operating budget and protect the church from adverse financial circumstances. If you would like to learn more, visit our website Legacy Fund – Westminster Presbyterian Church (nashvillewpc.church) or contact JoAnn McFarlin, Executive Director of Operations, jmcfarlin@nashville.org or 615-292-5526 ext 231, Donovan Drake, or Jay Hardcastle, Trustee Chair.
And thank you to those who have already included Westminster in their planned giving! We are updating church records and confirming those who have named Westminster as a beneficiary in their will, retirement plan, or life insurance policy. Please contact JoAnn McFarlin, Executive Director of Operations, jmcfarlin@nashville.org or 615-292-5526 ext 231 to let us know your plans.
Hartley & Carolyn Hall
When COVID-19 hit in March of 2020, it sent us all home for lock- down unprepared, both in terms of our toilet-paper logistics and our emotional stamina. Can you imagine what isolation would have looked and felt like without the benefits of the Internet and the new “Zoom” technology we were all about to master?
Being able to log onto a computer and video chat with family, friends, and work colleagues, and then book groups, Bible studies and church has been a blessing of our age to which no previous similar national emergency has had access. It kept us in touch, it kept many of us in our jobs, we went to virtual doctors and therapist appointments and even did physical therapy via remote video chat.
Pretty quickly, we started to notice that some folks got the hang of this new world better than others. The work colleague with the fancy (and ever-changing) back drop and the friend with the crystal-clear camera or the excellent lighting for skin tone began to stand out. We all started trading tips and ordering webcam gear from Amazon.
Carolyn and I started taking note of the differences in the broadcast quality of Westminster’s Sunday service and other church broadcasts. Having the ability to “Zoom” into church was a real innovation and a great comfort. Not that it hadn’t been there before – it was – but now we really needed it! And it occurred to us that going forward, the ability to live-stream church makes church so much more accessible to those who, for whatever reason, cannot attend. It’s no equal substitute, of course, to the in-person experience, but the ability to attend a funeral or a Bible study when you are out of town or recovering from an operation is a real innovation that pretty immediately has become aresponsibility of the church. Plus, it opens the message of our church to a larger, even global audience.
In addition to accessing this ourselves, Carolyn and I could see how important good quality live-stream broadcasting was, and would be going forward, to congregants who were struggling with mobility issues or other health issues that keep them at home. Additionally, we could not help but notice the frequent mishaps such as Internet breakdown or freeze, slow-down and pixilation, and the challenges that exist at the nexus of lighting, broadcast, and camera/picture quality.
Nancy Falls and Neil Price
We want to make the Westminster Legacy Fund a part of our wills to help ensure the church’s ability to continue to do God’s work in the world for generations to come. Our church has touched so many lives over the 150 years of its history, playing an important role in the spiritual and intellectual life of Nashville and communities near and far.
We thought our own Westminster history began when Nancy moved here as a widow with two small children 25 years ago. But when we were planning our wedding, we found out Neil’s father, a family physician in a small town in Texas, had come here while a medical student at Vanderbilt 70 years ago!
When we were married, Westminster was this great place that helped in the creation of our blended family. For Nancy’s parents, when they became more dependent and moved here, Westminster became the new church home that embraced them through the Good Sams fellowship and the caring ministry of Carson Salyer and others. The capable and loving staff surrounded us with love and support as we planned Nancy’s father’s memorial service five years later. We have watched our children be transformed by the love and patience of youth ministers, choir leaders, and the experiences on mission trips.
Since then, we’ve celebrated three weddings and a baptism, becoming a four generation Westminster family, loved into being better people of God in the process.
Vision, leadership and a willingness to sacrifice to do God’s work led to this church’s being built 150 years ago. Including the Westminster Legacy Fund in our wills allows us to show gratitude for all that Westminster has given us and help fund the good works it has yet to give to this congregation and the world.
Ashley and Lew Conner
During more than fifty years as members of Westminster, we have been blessed and nurtured in so many ways. At Westminster we have experienced the birth of our children, baptisms, weddings, Christian education, and now a repeat of that process for our grandchildren. Westminster has conducted the funerals of our parents, offered us support and comfort in other times of family crisis, and provided the foundation of our own spiritual journey through participation as Elders, in worship, and other works of the church. Westminster was where we taught Sunday School and participated with youth programs, Habitat builds, NaCoMe, and Every Member Canvases. We have considered the compelling needs of the church, particularly renovation and restoration of its aging facilities. Thus, in thankfulness for all of the many blessings received by our family from Westminster and to help enable its exceptional leadership as it looks to the future, we have chosen to make gifts to The Legacy Fund now and at our deaths. It is our great hope that all other members will go through a prayerful analysis of their own blessings received from Westminster, and if they reach the same conclusion, contribute to The Legacy Fund, according to their means.
We strongly believe that the flexibility provided by live- streaming is here to stay, and we believe that it is now the church’s responsibility to provide it in a fashion and manner that is commensurate with Westminster’s overall high standards. To this end, Carolyn and I felt called to make a donation via the Legacy Fund to upgrade Westminster’s overall broadcasting capacity and quality, firm in the belief that it will be used to preach the good news and to keep people who might otherwise be unable to access our ministries more fully connected and involved. We are very pleased to make this gift to a church that we believe has a great message to share.