According to Neil T. Anderson, “Your greatest fulfillment in life will come when you discover your unique gifts and abilities and use them to edify others and glorify the Lord.”
While I am not fully sure that discovering your spiritual gifts will lead you to live happily ever after, I am convinced that a deeper understanding of spiritual endowments can help a local church become more missional and less conflictual.
In I Corinthians 12:1, as Paul urges the believers to serve and grow, he writes, “Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed.” Unfortunately, many long-time church attendees are uninformed or misinformed about the gifts of the Spirit.
What is a spiritual gift? A spiritual gift is a God-given potential or ability that enables individuals to work and serve as a team to empower the church to execute its mission on earth.
Here are 10 insights to help us think more deeply about spiritual gifts:
- Every Jesus follower is given at least one spiritual gift. Everybody has one, and some have two or three. Some gifts are not as obvious, and some gifts surface later in life. Know this for sure: whatever your age or stage in life, you are a gifted follower of Jesus.
- Spiritual gifts usually come with “some assembly required.” Some spiritual gifts are like the Christmas gifts we get for our children, and we have to spend time putting the parts together. Other spiritual gifts are like precious metal or blown glass, and they need to go through the refiner’s fire to reach their full potential.
- There are a variety of gifts mentioned in the Bible. Paul specifically mentions the gifts of being an apostle, prophet, evangelist, or pastor/teacher. Other passages allude to the spiritual gifts of leadership, compassion, encouragement, intercession, service, and healing. I would propose, however, that the biblical list is exemplary and not exhaustive.
- There may be additional gifts given for our time and place. The Bible doesn’t declare that any of the lists of spiritual gifts are complete. Neither does the Bible clearly say that more gifts will be given. From my perspective, there are either new gifts that are given for this era or there are fresh expressions of the gifts mentioned in scripture. For example, the gift of worship planning could be a subset of the gift of leadership, or the gift of end-of-life care could be the gift of compassion 2.0. As I think about the gifts I see being expressed or needed in today’s world, I could include things like peacemaking, worship planning, consensus building, social networking, missional innovation, technology management, and church revitalization.
- No spiritual gift is more or less important than the other gifts.
Spiritual gifts are not given to create a class system but to generate a community system. Gifts are not given to entertain the church but to encourage and equip the church. Gifts are not given to rank the saints but to retool the saints. - Spiritual gifts are unifying. These gifts of the Spirit are given so “that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith” (Ephesians 4:12-13). Within each church, which is a local expression of the body of Christ, the utilization of spiritual gifts produces a sense of harmony as the gifts are used cooperatively to advance God’s mission in the world.
- Spiritual gifts require a spirit of teamwork. No matter which spiritual gifts we possess, the gifts are most effective when used alongside other believers with compatible and complementary gifts. Teams that work together cooperatively and collaboratively can make better decisions and engage in more effective ministry initiatives than any individual. Brené Brown reminds us, “You don’t have to do it all alone. You were never meant to.”
- Ministers also have one or more spiritual gifts. Some church members mistakenly think that those who are called to serve as ministers have all the spiritual gifts. However, ministers, like other church members, have one or two, maybe three spiritual gifts. This means that when a church calls a minister, they should consider how the spiritual gifts of the minister correspond to the needs and gifts of the congregation. For effective ministry to happen, the spiritual gifts of the members must be activated and leveraged in concert with their minister or ministerial staff to maximize the giftedness of the congregation.
- Spiritual gifts are to be used for the building up of the body. When the Bible mentions spiritual gifts, the injunction that follows is to equip, encourage, edify, and build up the body of Christ. The directive to build up refers to the maturing of the body, not necessarily a numerical increase within the body. However, in my experience, the maturation of faith within the faith community almost always leads to increased participation within the community.
- Spiritual gifts are given to the church. Spiritual gifts are not for individual aggrandizement but for congregational empowerment. As individual believers, we are simply the human God uses to deliver the gifts. Spiritual gifts are not given to advocate for a personal agenda but to advance our God-given mission. One litmus test that determines whether we are using our spiritual gifts appropriately is whether we are equipping and encouraging the church. If our efforts create division in the church, we are likely not using our spiritual gifts as God intended.
Rick Warren urges us to remember, “Your spiritual gifts were not given for your own benefit but for the benefit of others, just as other people were given gifts for your benefit.”
What is your spiritual gift? Some of us need to discover our spiritual gifts while others of us need to recover our spiritual gifts. If you have not completed a spiritual gift assessment recently, I encourage you to visit one of the following websites and complete an evaluation to help you discover and develop your spiritual gifts: Spiritual Gifts Assessment or Free Spiritual Gifts Test & Assessment (lifethrive.com).
Barry's Notes 