Spiritual Gifts
This is from a test I took
Spiritual gifts are tools God gives Christians to do the work of the ministry — to fulfill the Great Commission to reach, baptize, and teach and to minister to one another. Every Christian receives at least one gift at the moment of salvation. Spiritual gifts are not rewards, are not natural talents, are not a place of service, are not an age-group ministry, and are not a specialty ministry. They express themselves through various ministries which, in turn, accomplish a variety of results. A spiritual gift is the primary channel by which the Holy Spirit ministers through the believer. It is a supernatural capacity for service to God — and He gives you a supernatural desire to perform the duties of that gift. Spiritual gifts are tools for building the church. They are a source of joy in your Christian life and influence your motives. A spiritual gift is a divine calling with a divine responsibility, because what God has gifted you to do, He has called you to do, and what He has called you to do, He has gifted you to do.
Three categories of spiritual gifts exist. CATEGORY ONE: The Miraculous Gifts, generally known today as Charismatic Gifts (apostles, tongues, interpretation of tongues, healing, and miracles). CATEGORY TWO: The Enabling Gifts, which all Christians have the ability to develop (faith, discernment, wisdom, and knowledge — qualities possessed rather than activities performed). Many scholars combine these gifts with others, based on the similarity of these gift characteristics and the synonyms used by Paul to describe them in Scripture. For example, some scholars combine Discernment with Prophecy, Knowledge with Teaching, Wisdom with Exhortation, and Hospitality with Serving. CATEGORY THREE: the Team Gifts, which are service-, ministry-, task-oriented or are activities performed such as teaching. The Team Gifts are functional and involve speaking or ministering. Chances are, you have several of these gifts that vary in degrees and intensity. In many cases, spiritual gifts may complement your secular employment. The Spiritual Gifts Analysis you took identified your dominant TEAM GIFTS, which will help find your place on God’s team in your church. Prayer and serving God will also help you see where God wants you to serve in ministry in your church and daily life. This profile gives you a simple bar graph showing your strengths (higher scores, longer bars) and weaknesses (lower scores, shorter bars) as related to spiritual gifts, and analyzes in-depth your dominant and secondary team gifts which are the ones that will have greater influence in your life. These are the areas where you are gifted to be most effective and efficient and in which you will find it easiest to excel.
Your dominant gifts are Evangelism, Shepherding, Prophecy
Evangelism
That does not necessarily mean you are supposed to travel the world, preaching the Gospel. The Greek word “Euangelistes” means to proclaim glad tidings, a messenger of good. It denotes a proclaimer of the Gospel. The evangelist can either be a preacher who stands before a crowd, imploring them to be saved, or perhaps an individual sitting in a living room or on a plane, trying to persuade someone to accept Christ. As an evangelist you have the Spirit-given capacity and desire to serve God by leading people who are beyond your natural sphere of influence to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. You are sometimes classified as the aggressive soulwinner who seeks the lost. As an evangelist you are likely very outgoing and personable. You compliment even strangers and are not afraid to ask them questions about their lifestyle – such as where they work, what hobbies they have, what’s their favorite sports team, where they were born, and do they attend church. This opens the door to talk about their relationship with Jesus Christ – something you’re just itching to do. Be careful not to be too overbearing or you may push some people farther away from Christ. You have great joy in seeing people come to Christ and are often consumed with the desire to confront sinners with the Gospel. You urge other Christians to do the same by directly telling them they must win souls or by encouraging them by telling about your most recent experience. However, you must be careful not to belittle them or make them feel unspiritual because they do not have the burden for lost souls like you do. You probably have memorized Scripture so you are not caught “empty-handed” while witnessing. Rather than waiting for opportunities to present the Gospel, the evangelist often makes opportunities. Since you will influence so many people, you must be careful to live in such a manner that you do not bring reproach upon your message. For instance, if you influence 30 people and only one of them accepts Christ immediately, the other 29 are left to be harvested later (by you or someone else). If you were to fall spiritually, your life\’s witness may negatively influence those 29 onlookers against Christianity. If you are a new Christian, you may want to begin using your gift by providing prospects to seasoned evangelists and giving testimonies to those you knew before you were saved. Perhaps you could pair up with an experienced evangelist to follow up on prospects and visit strangers for the purpose of reaching them for Christ. If you are a more mature Christian, with experience in evangelizing, take a new Christian “evangelist” under your wing. Share your experiences with him or her and provide encouragement. Continue to look for opportunities to share the Gospel and lead souls to Christ. Other people may tend to think you are pushy, that you are more interested in numbers than people, and that you judge their spirituality by the number of souls thay have won. Beware that Satan can attack your gift by causing pride in your number of converts, causing failure to grow and learn, causing you to see people as numbers rather than people with needs, causing discouragement when converts are few or infrequent, and causing a lack of concern for Bible passages that cannot be used as “soulwinning texts.” How can you use this gift? There are many avenues in which you can carry out the gift of evangelism. Visitation programs are the most obvious. You may enjoy visiting juvenile detention centers or jails, going door-to-door, going to orphanages and shelters for women or the homeless, and of course, following up on visitors in their homes. Your gift is a plus for leading people to Christ during an invitation or altar call. You could participate in special evangelistic efforts, such as fairs and other events. Your gift also fits well in church planting, on Gospel teams, immigrant ministry, men’s or women’s conferences, and many public speaking ministries.
Shepherding
The Greek word “poimen” means pastor. In Paul’s spiritual gifts listing in Ephesians 4:11, this term is translated “pastor.” Although the word “poimen” is translated pastor only one time in Scripture it is used sixteen additional times. The remaining sixteen are all translated “shepherd.” Therefore, we are actually discussing the GIFT of shepherding, not the POSITION of pastor. Though a good pastor must have the gift of shepherding, everyone who has the gift of shepherding is not called to be pastor. The gift can be used in many positions in a church. As a gifted shepherd, you have the Spirit-given capacity and desire to serve God by overseeing, training, and caring for the needs of a group of Christians. You are usually very patient, people-centered, and willing to spend time in prayer for others. You tend to be a “Jack of All and Master of ONE,” meaning you are usually dominant in one of the speaking gifts (evangelist, prophet, teacher, exhorter) as well. You are often authoritative, more a leader than a follower, and expressive, composed, and sensitive. Your pleasing personality draws people to you. You have a burden to see others learn and grow and are protective of those under your care. You want to present the whole Word of God and do not like to present the same materials more than once. You are willing to study what is necessary to feed your group and are more relationship oriented than task oriented. You are a peace-maker and diplomat – very tolerant of people\’s weaknesses. You tend to remember people\’s names and faces. You are more concerned with doing for others than others doing for you. You are faithful and devoted and may become a workaholic. You can become an all-purpose person in order to meet needs. People with the gift of shepherding make the best Sunday school teachers and group leaders because their desire is to go beyond just teaching or leading, to shepherd and minister to the daily needs of their students. The position of Sunday school teacher or group leader is an extension of the pastoral ministry in the church. These groups should be shepherded on a small scale the same as the pastor shepherds the whole congregation on a large scale. Be careful to involve other people; don’t try to do it all yourself. Work on making people accountable. Do not be overly protective of your “flock.” Because of these potentially weak areas, other people may think it is your job to do all the work; they rely too heavily on you. You may be expected to be available at all times, know all the answers, and be at every function. Learn when to say no. Beware of Satan’s attack on your gift. He will cause discouragement when the load gets heavy, and pride because your “sheep” look up to you. You may develop family problems because of too little time and attention. You may become selfish when “sheep” feed in other pastures. How can you use this gift? This gift is a great help in many areas. You may serve as a Sunday school teacher, small group leader, pastor or assistant pastor, bus captain, special ministry leader (such as youth, children, men, etc.), nursery worker or as a half-way house or other type shelter volunteer. You may consider serving as a dormitory leader in a college, orphanage, children’s home, etc. Scout troops would appreciate your assistance as a den leader.
Prophecy
That does not mean you are supposed to have visions of the future. It means you are a “forthteller,” telling or “speaking forth” the mind of God: boldly preaching, speaking, and teaching God’s Word. You are very discerning; one who points out sin with the goal of making people aware of sin in their lives so they will repent. A prophet in full-time Christian service may be a preacher, often traveling to churches, evangelistic events, and on missions trips. You have the Spirit-given capacity and desire to serve God by proclaiming His truth. As a prophet you have an ability to see that which is wrong. In fact, you tend to easily spot what is wrong and have to look to find something right. You probably spend much time praying and even weeping over the sins of the church and for those who have yet to accept Christ. You have a great burden over the sinful condition of the world around you. Because of this, you take every opportunity to proclaim that everyone must repent or perish. You have a strong sense of duty and are very opinionated, impatient, and likely more depressed or serious than lighthearted about life. You enjoy being alone, but would rather be in a group than relate to people one-on-one. You desire to speak publicly. You are able to make quick decisions and want things done right. You do not like in-depth study. You are likely hard-working, devoted, able to discern people\’s motives and character, and willing to stand up for what is right. Other people may think you are demanding, that you enjoy hurting people\’s feelings, and that you have no understanding. One of your greatest challenges is to keep a spirit of love. Remember to “speak the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15) and not to be judgmental. If you keep a tender, loving heart, you will be a blessing in your home, church, and to individuals. You can make a real impact on their spirituality. Be careful to let the Holy Spirit convict people, rather than trying to convict them yourself. Work on being positive, patient, and tactful. Beware of Satan’s attack on your gift. He may try to cause a lack of compassion and forgiveness, bring discouragement because of unrepentant attitudes by others, entice you to fall into the very sins you speak against or cause pride and self-righteousness over lack of certain sins. How can you use this gift? There are several avenues in which to carry out the gift of prophecy. Revival speaking is certainly a fitting ministry. You can pastor well IF you have a secondary gift of pastor/shepherd. You are a great help in problem-solving for a church with a sin problem. You could also serve in teaching on Gospel teams, in prison ministry, in migrant ministry, and in counseling to help bring awareness of sin in a person’s life. You could speak at conferences and retreats. You would serve well as one who promotes causes you believe in, stands up for those who have been wronged, teaches God’s Word, provides counsel to others. Depending on your secondary most dominant gift and your abilities, you may serve as one who initiates action, plans events, leads an evangelism or missions team, acts as a mediator to get to the points and come up with a plan of action, counsels those who have fallen away and need help getting on track, helps raise funds and speaks for humanitarian organizations, or works as an advocate for children or victims of crimes, as a committee member for ministry planning, as a prayer and accountability partner, or as a Bible teacher.
Building an effective team in your church depends on putting the right people in the right places. The best way to determine what place each person belongs in is by determine everyone’s spiritual gifts. But, just discovering your spiritual gift is not enough.
Here’s the real challenge. Many Christians are asking the question, “What is my spiritual gift?” When in reality they need to be asking, “What is a spiritual gift?” They do not understand the relationships of spiritual gifts. That is, they don’t understand how a spiritual gift relates to their life, how it relates to the will of God for their life, how it relates to the lives of those around them, how it relates the local church, or how it relates to the body of Christ as a whole. To give John J. Christian an additional name and make him John J. Exhorter Christian is only doing him an injustice. Having a new name or title does not make you a more effective, more fulfilled, or a better Christian, nor does it give you any more understanding of yourself or those around you. Most contemporary material written on spiritual gifts does an adequate job in helping you recognize, discover, and define what your spiritual gifts are. Also, many do a fine job of teaching on the individual parts of the body, but few complete their teaching by assembling the body, thus showing how church members can work as complementing, effective, and efficient team. Thus, teaching a person only what their spiritual gift is without teaching them what a spiritual gift is, is like giving someone a new tool without giving them the operator’s manual. They will never understand it fully nor will they be able to use it to its maximum potential. The same is true with your spiritual gifts.
God bless, Dan Beliveau
Take the test: https://gifts.churchgrowth.org
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