Session 4: Each One of Us Play a Part in the Body of Christ
In Session 4 of the Discovering Your Spiritual Gifts series we’ve learnt that each of us play a part in the body of Christ, which means no one is higher or lower than you. In God’s eyes, we are all the same, but we have different functions and roles that God has seen fit to give us specific spiritual gifts that help and build up the body of Christ. We also learnt the importance of using our gifts but we need to figure out not only what we have but what we should do. To see if we have a particular spiritual gift, we need to do two things. We need to test it by experimenting in various ministries or help out where we see a need. And secondly, we need to get honest feedback from others who know us. You have to experiment and think deeply about feedback given. During the experimental stage - set a time limit for yourself, communicate the time limit to the leader, pray. Keep a log, ask for feedback and see how you feel about the overall experience. You will need to figure out your ministry passion (eg helping older people; love children; help the poor etc) and also know yourself i.e. personality. Your spiritual gift tells you what you can do, but it doesn’t tell you what to do - just because there isn’t a named ministry, doesn’t mean you can’t serve. See the gap and fill it. For example, I wanted to help out the church office and asked them what I could do to help. They needed someone to do some SOPs for how to switch on the computer and the sound system in the main hall and I helped them come up with a photo SOP booklet, and I even help them do up a soft-copy of the payment voucher. Now administration isn’t my gifting but I discovered a need and did my best to help. And after that, the church took the idea of pasting photos of how things should be and that has helped keep things in some order. And I discovered that I didn’t have the gift of administration and moved on. Lastly, we must be careful not to over emphasise our gifts and those of others. I may not have been gifted with administration but it doesn’t mean I can’t do administration stuff if required. It will just mean I am not as good as some of you but I did okay. Sometimes you will be called upon to help out in areas you have no spiritual gifts, like say evangelism, but that doesn’t mean we don’t share the gospel story or our testimony and just leave it to those gifted with evangelism. Just because we don’t have the gift of Faith, we don’t pray for each other or just because we don’t have the gift of encouragement, we don’t encourage each other. Like the ice-breaker game, just because you are not comfortable with using your non-dominant hand to write with, it doesn’t mean you can’t write with it. With practice you can grow to be competent to write with your non-dominant hand but it might not be as nice as your dominant hand. Focus on building up your spiritual gifts and manage your expectations and do you best in situations you may not have spiritual gifts in. We do what we can, where we can, for the glory of God.