| Randall Currie (Please print these pages for a permanent record of your analysis.) Share the Spiritual Gifts Analysis with others: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Spiritual Gifts | Strength | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Evangelism | 10 |  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prophecy | 8 | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Teaching | 20 | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Exhortation | 11 | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pastor/Shepherd | 9 | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Showing Mercy | 16 | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Serving | 16 | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Giving | 12 | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Administration | 9 | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 GodÕs 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.
As a teacher you live to learn and teach (or perhaps write if you teach through the written medium). You should learn to teach in two manners which may be contrary to your nature. The material must be simple so students can understand it, and it must be practical. The pastor/shepherd, the prophet, and the exhorter (those with speaking gifts) usually rely on your resources to help fulfill their responsibilities. You love the Word, enjoy reading, may be a little shy of strangers, are creative and imaginative, and prefer teaching groups over individuals. You are generally confident, self-disciplined, and sometimes technical. You probably love charts, graphs, and lists. You would sometimes rather just do research, but "must teach" because others would not teach it the way you would. The use of a verse out of context upsets you and you question the knowledge of those who teach you. You are organized and enjoy studying. You are so concerned with accuracy that you often dwell on the trivial, giving others the feeling that you give too many details. Some may even think you are boring. Be careful that you are not critical of people who differ with your doctrine and that you do not measure other people's spirituality by their amount of Bible knowledge. Be willing to listen as well as talk. Don't hesitate to read directions and work on developing tolerance for others' mistakes. If you score high in the gift of teaching and very low in the gift of shepherding, you probably won't make a good Sunday school teacher or group leader. Your tendency will be to relay knowledge and not shepherd or minister to the other needs of your students. People who use the gift of teaching in vocational service usually become teachers of teachers, professors, authors, or in-depth researchers. HOW CAN YOU USE YOUR DOMINANT GIFT? You do not necessarily have to teach the Bible to be a help to the church ministry. Although you can help with interpretation or teaching teachers and others, you may teach in areas such as education, business, finance, or computers. You may enjoy writing and developing curriculum. You would probably serve well as a Bible institute teacher or a correspondence course instructor. Your gift also lends itself to the mission field where you could serve as a missionary/teacher. You may want to teach a basic doctrine course to newcomers or new Christians or host quarterly small group studies on different topics. You may enjoy doing research for the pastor or others who teach.
As a mercy-shower you are willing to deal with and minister to people who have needs that most people feel very uncomfortable working with. You seem to say the right thing at the right time. Your personality is likely one of soft-spoken love. It hurts you to scold someone; you are very non-condemning. People love you because of all the love you give them. You find it easy to express yourself and are outgoing with a low-key, inoffensive personality. You are easy to talk to, responsive to people, a good listener, peaceable, and agreeable. You tend to make decisions based on feelings more than fact and like to think about things for a while before making a decision. In your burden to comfort others, your heart goes out to the poor, the aged, the ill, the underprivileged, and so on. You tend to attract people who are hurting or rejoicing because you identify with them. Be careful not to let others use you. Try not to resent others who are not as understanding as you. Refrain from becoming a gossiper when you are around other mercy-showers. Do not let your circumstances control you. Because of your supernatural ability to show mercy, others accuse you of taking up for people, being a softy and a compromiser. They may think you are too emotional. Mercy-showers make excellent counselors. However, left untrained, you may destroy yourself by your tendency to take people's problems home with you. Your empathy can become detrimental without personal training on how to deal with it. Beware of Satan's attack on your gift. He can cause pride because of your ability to relate to others. He may influence you to disregard rules and authority. You may experience a lack of discipline because of strong feeling for those who hurt due to disobedience and sin. Don't fall into Satan's trap of complaining and griping. HOW CAN YOU USE YOUR GIFT? Your gift is used best in times of sorrow and in times of great joy. It fits well with another gift of service such as deacon, youth worker or hospital visitation. With a counseling course, you could become a good counselor. You may serve as a hospital, nursing home, or shut-in worker; a funeral coordinator and provider of sympathy and support; or a poverty center worker. You would do well as an usher or greeter and welcome center worker or hospitality person. You may want to work in a telephone ministry. You would make people feel welcome on a newcomer visitation team. Other appropriate ministry areas include missions, committee member, furlough assistance, and correspondence helper. You would work well with the elderly and with people who have mental and physical disabilities, in nursing, and with special ministries to migrants, released offenders or abused children and women.
The gift of serving is not the gift God gives you when you cannot do anything else. It is spiritual in nature and as important as any gift in the church. Never think it is anything less; it only becomes less if you do not use it as God intended. As a server you are the person who is willing to do a million and one necessary tasks in the church. You probably do not realize that your love for the Lord is showing every time the doors of the church are open, especially if you oiled the hinges last week so they don't squeak any more. You are happy working behind the scenes. You are ambitious, often involved in a variety of activities, and enjoy manual projects. You are loyal, sincere, tolerant, faithful, and devoted. Most people find you easy going, likable, congenial, and inoffensive. You can listen to others without being critical. You do not like to be in the spotlight and prefer not to express yourself publicly. You are quick to respond to needs and impressed with the need to respond when exhorted to serve. Because of this, you find it difficult to say no. You like to support a good leader. Some consider you a workaholic. You tend to emphasize practical needs over spiritual needs. Be careful that you complete what you start and do not neglect the needs of your own family by trying to meet so many needs in the church or in others' homes. Be willing to read and follow directions in the beginning--not just when all else fails. Because of your quick response, some people think you jump in too fast. Others think you neglect spiritual needs. Beware of Satan's attack on your gift. He can cause pride because of the work you do. He may cause you to feel insignificant or cause you to lack concern for people or for spiritual growth. Impatience and lack of knowledge cause poor-quality workmanship. HOW CAN YOU USE YOUR GIFT? Your gift may put you into action. You may serve as manager of maintenance and grounds. You can do may tasks such as paint the walls, pick up trash, sort hymnals, clean the baptistry, keep the nurseryÐor launder nursery bedding, cook meals, paint signs, drive the bus, help with the choir, run errands, serve as an audio-video worker, help with recordkeeping, be the church librarian, act as a greeter or an usher, serve as a stage hand in drama productions or as a photographer. You may want to help in special ministries such as migrant or community help (with home repairs or meal-on-wheels for the needy and elderly), as a hospitality worker for newcomers, or as an instrumentalist. You may also enjoy beautifying the church ground with flower gardens and landscaping. The list goes on.
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. Now that you have taken this inventory and know what your spiritual gifts are, we encourage you to study the principles that revolve around and relate to spiritual gifts. These principles combined with recognizing your gifts have been proven to dramatically change lives AND build churches. We have many resources available to help you better understand your gifts and how they relate to all areas of your life. Plus, we have resources to equip and assist you in teaching spiritual gifts and biblical team building to others. Furthermore, we have teachers who can come to your church and teach private seminars for you group. For additional information on resources or seminars just click on the appropriate button below. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How do you compare with the rest of the Body of Christ? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The results of your Spiritual Gifts Inventory indicate that your number one dominant gift is TEACHING! The Greek word for teacher "didaskalos" means master, teacher or doctor. As a teacher you are one who communicates knowledge, guides, makes known or relays facts. You are likely more in-depth than the average Sunday school teacher. You have the Spirit-given capacity and desire to serve God by making clear the truth of God's Word with accuracy. 
The results of your Spiritual Gifts Inventory indicate that your second dominant gift is MERCY SHOWING! The Greek word "ellco" means to feel sympathy with or for others. As a mercy-shower you have the Spirit-given capacity and desire to serve God by identifying with and comforting those who are in distress. You understand and comfort your fellow Christian. You enter into the grief or happiness of others and have the ability to show empathy which is to feel WITH others, not just for others. 
The results of your Spiritual Gifts Inventory indicate that your second dominant gift is SERVING! The Greek word "Diakonia" means to do service. In Acts 6:1 the word is interpreted "ministration." Our word deacon comes from the same Greek word. Actually the gift of serving combines helps and ministering. The word "helps" is used in 1 Corinthians 12:28 and "ministering" in Romans 12:7. As a server you have the Spirit-given capacity and desire to serve God by rendering practical help in both physical and spiritual matters. You enjoy meeting the practical needs of your fellow Christians and the church. Could the results from these comparison charts be skewed? Probably to some degree. Two factors to consider are 1) Results are not compiled from the Christian public at large but only those who are Internet users. 2) On the laity side, a much larger percentage of those taking the spiritual gifts inventory on-line are women (63.7%). Women tend to score high in the Gift of Shepherding because the characteristics of the gift of shepherding are very similar to the God-given instincts of mothering which comes natural to most women. Although many women have the gift of shepherding and it manifests itself in many areas of service, we believe women should consider this factor when evaluating whether or not they actually have the dominant gift of shepherding. They may want to also look closely at their second dominant gift. |
Copyright © 1986 Church Growth Institute Forest, Virginia, and Elkton, Maryland, USA 1-800-553-GROW http://www.ChurchGrowth.org |
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