One of the most eye opening experiences I ever had during my faith journey was the discovery that God had supernaturally endowed me with spiritual gifts. The bible makes it very clear that at the moment of conversion we are given spiritual gifts that are to be used to help build God's kingdom. (1 Corinthians 12 for example) This revelation happened while I was working on my undergrad degree and I completed all the spiritual gift surveys I could get my hands on to try and discover the gifts God had given me.
As I completed the inventories, I secretly hoped that I had some gifts more than others (just like the Corinthian Christians)because I saw some as more important than others. I remember that I did not want the gift of "martyrdom" (which was on one survey I completed) because I figured it was a gift you could only use once and I was not anxious in using it! In the end I was happy with my gifts, although I can not remember them now.
When I went to The Salvation Army Officer Training College there was a lot of talk about using your spiritual gifts in ministry, so once more I filled out the survey to see what gifts I had. I scored high in apostleship, leadership and teaching and very low on the caring gifts (not too much of a surprise to my friends). With the understanding of what my gifts were I was now going out into the world to exercise those gifts in the churches I would pastor.
Then something incredible happened... I was appointed to a place where my gifts were not appreciated and really not used. In fact, my ministry was centered more on the caring gifts that I scored so low on. So I had to learn how to be more caring and how to listen and how to be hospitable. I really didn't like it, but I did it.
At my next church I thought for sure that I would get to use my gifts in ministry like they taught us in Training College, and I did. But although I was gifted in apostleship, leadership and teaching; I had never developed the gifts I had. So for the next three years I worked hard on being better. I also discovered that in the course of my ministry I had to do work that was not in my gift mix at all. I had to do administration, counseling, hospitality, evangelism and sometimes what seemed like martyrdom!
A move to Niagara Falls in 2001 allowed me to use my gifts on a continual basis for 11 years and to develop and hone them even more. I attended national conferences on church planting and taught at other events to train future church planters in a variety of denominations. And even while I was doing all that, I still had to do ministry that was not in my gift mix.
Today, I still have the gift of apostleship, leadership and teaching. It is these activities that get me excited to do ministry. But, I am also a pretty good at the caring ministries that I am not gifted in because of the ministry I have had to do.
I encourage everyone to find out what your spiritual gift is because it is the one thing that will bring you the most joy in life. I also want to encourage you to do things outside of your gift mix because God can use you there as well. Never say you can't do something because it is not your gift.
Do you think that, had you not gone down the path of ministry, you would have had an aptitude for the qualities you describe? Baring apostelship, which in definition requires the christian church. Although, I suppose semantically it could be used in other ways.
ReplyDeleteYes I do think I would still have the gifts I described. I probably would have developed my own business because of my gift mix; I would rather work for myself than for someone else. Another word for apostleship would be entrepreneur - an apostle starts new movements, churches, structures, etc. which is not unlike an business entrepreneur. I had a propensity to leadership before I became a Christian and I have a knack for explaining difficult concepts in an easy to understand manner since my early twenties. That being said, if I had not gone into ministry I would then have to use those unique qualities in some fashion within the church as a lay person.
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