Retirement

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How We Are Different

Customized Retirement Solutions for Mission-Sending Organizations

What are you interested in?

Learn more about how we can guide, advocate and provide for your organization toward a strong financial future, fortifying your steps as you follow God wherever he leads.

Retirement Plan Expertise

Faith-Based Funds & Investments

Employer & Employee Education

How We Serve Mission-Sending Organizations

Church Retirement Plan Expertise & Administration

Retirement plans for churches and ministries require plan providers who understand the unique considerations and expertise you need. At GuideStone, the majority of GuideStone plan sponsors — 99% in fact — utilize church plans for their retirement savings.

We will work with you to identify plan goals, an optimal plan design and objectives specific to your organization that will engage your employees and drive participant outcomes. We work with you to review your specific needs as your ministry partner — not simply as a vendor. We are here to help you and your employees start well, stay well and finish well.

We know churches and ministries have unique retirement needs and we help with:

How GuideStone serves Church Plans
  • We utilize Omni, a leading provider of recordkeeping software for retirement plans of all sizes.
  • We provide an online employer portal — the GuideStone Employer Access® Program (EAP)
  • We offer Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
  • We work with many payroll providers to help administer retirement plans effectively.
Employer-Sponsored Retirement Plans

GuideStone works with you to determine the plan that best fits the needs of your organization. Our full suite of retirement plan options includes 403(b)(9), 403(b)(7) and 401(k) plans — both non-ERISA church plans and ERISA plans — as well as 409A, 457(f) and 457(b) nonqualified deferred compensation (NQDC) plans.

Video: Plan Design Made for Ministry

See how GuideStone church plan design encourages plan participation, helps members strategically save for the future, accounts for unique ministerial considerations and keeps ministry in mind through every step.
View Retirement Plan Design
If you receive W-2 taxable income from a Southern Baptist Church, you are eligible to enroll in the SBC Church Retirement Plan.

Learn More About SBC Church Benefits

Faith-Based Funds & Flexible Investment Options

See Faith-Based Investing

Faith-Based Screened Funds

GuideStone Funds® offers a comprehensive lineup of diversified mutual funds that integrate Christian values with fundamental investment analysis.

Through faith-based investing with GuideStone, Christian investors can pursue three key goals with their investments:
  • All believers honor the Lord with their investments and their lives.
  • Christian ministries and individuals have all they need to grow the Kingdom, and the Gospel is heard throughout the world.
  • God’s people have a meaningful impact on the sanctity of life, human dignity and advancement, and the stewardship of God’s creation.

Video: Faith-Based Investing

What is faith-based investing, and why is it important to Christians? Faith-based investing allows you to invest the financial resources God has given you in a way that honors him and advances his Kingdom.

Flexible Investment Options

People are individuals. Risk tolerances are unique.

We understand that your teams’ investment knowledge and interests vary greatly from person to person. That’s why we walk alongside you to determine the best investment framework to meet the needs of you and your team. Proudly featuring GuideStone Funds, our comprehensive, tiered investment menu allows plan participants to easily identify an investment approach that works best with their time, interest and investment knowledge.

GuideStone offers our plan sponsors investment flexibility, therefore, you can select the GuideStone premier investment lineup or, create a lineup that meets your goals and objectives.
Choose From 3 Options
Do It For Me
Our professionally managed asset allocation options provide a simple choice for those who want a one-step approach to investing. This investment selection includes both Target Date Funds and Target Risk Funds.
Do It Myself
This approach is designed to help them build their own portfolio utilizing a broad range of core and specialty funds that provide the flexibility to address specific investment strategies.
Do It Together
We offer a range of customized financial planning services, tailored investment strategies and ongoing investment management for those looking for a higher level of service.

Video: Investment Options

Learn more about being appropriately invested. Do you know what you need to consider in order to invest better for retirement? Watch this video to find out!
View Investment Options

Employer & Employee Education

GuideStone understands the importance of educating your employees on what it means to be financially resilient. That’s why we strive to provide relevant, ministry-centric, financially focused and useful educational resources for you and your team.

Resources

We provide the below resources to support both your organization and your plan participants along their retirement journey to start well, stay well and finish well.
Videos
View More Educational Resources
Thumbnail picture of Impacting Investing video
Impact Investing
As Christians, we are called by Christ to be the salt and light of the world (Matthew 5:13-16). As Christian investors, we see Kingdom impact investing as an opportunity to be salt and light. Learn more about our impact investing strategies in this short video.

For Investment professional and Institutional Investor use only.
What is Minister's Housing Allowance?
Video • 5/14/2024
What is Minister's Housing Allowance?
Minister’s housing allowance is arguably the most important tax benefit available to ministers, allowing them to exclude housing expenses from their ministerial income, before and after retirement.
How Do I Steward a Reasonable, Yet Market-based Pastor Salary?
Video • 2/6/2024
How Do I Steward a Reasonable, Yet Market-based Pastor Salary?
When pastors answer the call to ministry, it’s usually not with the expectation of major financial gain. But that doesn’t mean they should be expected to live on a wage that doesn’t meet their needs. Unfortunately, pastor pay has remained almost completely flat in recent years, while at the same time, inflation has continued to climb.

How we Serve Mission-Sending Organizations

Mission-sending organizations have unique needs.

As a premier benefit provider with deep expertise in serving over 80 mission-sending organizations and 15,000 missionaries and home office employees, GuideStone is distinctly equipped to help you meet those needs and prepare your employees for a successful retirement. We are committed to empowering you with flexible solutions and competitive pricing, all wrapped in our shared Christian values.

Video: Roth Contributions & Global Workers

GuideStone has a comprehensive understanding of the financial and tax considerations that missionaries face. Watch this video for an example of the resources we make available to educate your global workers with information that applies uniquely to them.
View Investment Options

GuideStone Member Customer Service

See how GuideStone's expertise in serving mission-sending organizations allows us to customize our service to help your employees finish well:
  • Working alongside you as an enterprise that aligns with your values.
  • Offering a faith-based approach utilizing GuideStone Funds® to a fully customizable investment menu, GuideStone can support the investment line-up needs of your organization.
  • Understanding how to structure your retirement plan to maximize employee engagement and improve retirement outcomes.
  • Having a team that understands what makes overseas missionaries unique, including the foreign earned income exclusion, the benefit of Roth 403(b) contributions and in-plan Roth conversions while overseas, and how missionaries’ retirement preparation needs to differ from the typical U.S. retiree.
  • Providing a deep understanding of the record-keeping solutions needed to serve mission-sending organizations including the ability to accept employer after-tax contributions and facilitate in-plan Roth conversions.
  • Guiding employees who qualify as Ministers for Tax Purposes on expertise on allowing some or all of their retirement benefits as tax-free minister’s housing allowance.
  • Giving your employees access to GuideStone’s team of financial educators to answer their retirement planning or account questions.
  • Having advisory services that offer a range of service options from a free one-time advice appointment to a full wealth management solution.
  • Providing access to GuideStone customer solutions available via Zoom in addition to phone (toll-free and local) and email, for a variety of ways global workers can reach us for the help they need.
  • Offering a variety of resources for the unique needs of your overseas missionaries through the Global Worker Resource Center.

In addition to top-notch service, our dedicated service teams work directly with you to provide effective plan design and ministry-specific tools and resources to prepare your employees for a strong retirement.

View Ministerial Resources Center

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You should carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of the GuideStone Funds® before investing. A prospectus with this and other information about the Funds may be obtained by calling 1-888-GS-FUNDS (1-888-473-8637) or downloading one. It should be read carefully before investing.