For the last two days I’ve noted a potential pitfall to spiritual gifts testing. (See here and here). Though I think there are dangers to spiritual gifts testing I do believe they can be beneficial. As I mentioned yesterday, our church does a 3 in 1 profile that considers personality as well as spiritual gifts. Such tools can be helpful to the body in these ways:
- If a foot thinks it is a hand you’ve got problems. Though I’d rather have two hands and a confused foot that thinks its a hand over zero hands, I’d much rather have hands and feet do what they were created to do. Gifts testing can help hands realize that they are not feet.
- Empowering the timid. Sometimes a person is convinced that they are of little use to the church. Knowing that God has especially gifted them for service might empower them. (Though I wouldn’t rely on that alone—there are gospel issues here that also need to be explored).
- A chance to glorify God in his diversity. Usually arms think of the world through the perspective of an arm. Spiritual gifts testing and discussions afterwards can help arms (and other body parts) glory in the diversity and wisdom of God.
- A chance to realize who you are not and to rejoice in those that are. For a guy like me that really stinks at organization it can be really wonderful to realize that some people actually thrive on such things.
- It provides an opportunity for cruciform love. The “more excellent way” is to use the gifts that the Lord has given us to love and serve the body. Knowing what that looks like gives you an opportunity to at times “lay down” your gifts for the sake of love. And other times to fully use your gifts for the sake of love.
For these benefits to really see fruition they will need to be cultivated in a culture:
- where discipleship happens
- where humble service is cultivated
- where it is realized that these gifts test are not flawless, not a one time thing, and not defining (in other words—people change)
- where they are not used as an excuse to not do the things that you are not gifted in.
Conclusion:
The main point of this has been to say that whenever I look at the places in Scripture where spiritual gifts are discussed it is not primarily concerned with an attempt to figure out your giftedness or to help you figure out where to serve. Spiritual gifts tests are helpful not necessarily to decide what ministry to be involved in but to help you will do the ministry that we’re all called to do.
It’s been interesting to follow this line from a pastoral perspective. Being one of the sheep, I really appreciate what Mike says about discipleship. In my experience, the sheep want to know more about gifting and receive the truth joyfully that all of us are called to minister in the church . . .not just the pastor. It seems to me (understanding that pastors have little actual time with members) that the problem is that “church” has become too much of a business. We really have wandered far away from our first love, Jesus. There are always those who are “hungry” for Jesus and desire to serve Him in the church. Responding to that need is disicipleship, whether it comes in teaching, in prayer, or in serving. Enthusiam for the Lord gets contageous. I have worked with many over the years to encourage them to get involved and have used spiritual gift inventories to assist them to consider how they might be involved in the church. I think they are wonderful venues to plug people into serving. Of course, we come to an understanding of our gifting and calling if we continue to walk with Jesus, but you don’t have to have spiritual maturity to get plugged in. Remember fellas . . .ownership in ministry is a vital Jesus connection. I also think about how many times we plug people into positions of service that they are totally not suited for just because they are warm bodies and willing and the subsequent damage that comes from that.
Kay, I love your comments!
My biggest problem lies in your last sentence. I’ve had the hardest time because I have a unique mix of gifts and tend not to fall well into any established slot. I’m not well gifted in administrating my own gifts and those who are gifted administratively generally don’t find it helpful to make the odd-shaped place I need to fit into. Consequently, I’m always hit-and-miss in ministry.
Someday God might show me what I need to do.
I think a bigger truth besides every person not fitting into a cookie-cutter ministry is that every person is in fact not able to perfectly use their gifts. The reality of our world and the blessing of the gospel is that to some extent we are in fact just a “warm body” that God is placing into a role within the church, and it is his desire to use us for his purposes in spite of our imperfections and sin. I don’t know what “ownership in ministry is a vital Jesus connection” means, I’m not sure if it even has a semantic meaning, but I do know that God has called all of us to sacrifice our own self and to serve each other in humility and discernment, to the glory of God (Rom 12:1-3).
I’m not in favor of “Spiritual Gifts Testing” .. not in the sense that it’s mostly done, or via the checklist Lifeway publishes.
Ken Hemphill wrote a terrific course some years ago, called “Serving God .. Discovering and Using Your Spiritual Gifts.” THAT, I’m a big fan of. It consists of several weeks of education about gifts, and then a couple manners of self-assessment to determine what God might have prepared you for.
The problem with the checklists is that it is very difficult to use one without reading into it the things one admires, or would like to do. Also, they’re usually limited to a compilation of the gifts mentioned in the 3 major lists in the Bible, which is unnecessarily limiting, and acknowledges no power on the part of the Holy Ghost to invent new ones as needs arise.
Unless there are some tests I don’t know about, in which case, never mind.
I view Paul’s passages on spiritual gifts as a testimony precisely intended to get Christians to not compare their roles but rather to celebrate that God provides for all kinds of needs with all kinds of abilities.
It certainly is extraordinary salient that spiritual gifts have been given to every believer. Every believer. I’m not certain that categorizing the gift (or gifts) is necessary for it to be effective. But accepting there is a plurality of gifts is necessary to avoid the assumption that every believer needs to be an apostle.
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