22. Knowing Your Gifts and Abilities
(choose one of the following bulleted workouts)
- RealLife Plus Seminar
- Attend RealLife Plus Seminar.
- Complete instructor's workout.
- Discuss with an Equipping Partner.
- Follow-Up Study
- Study 1 Peter 4:7-11; 1 Corinthians 12:4-32; Romans 12:3-8; and Ephesians 4:1-16. For each text write out a list of the gifts (or offices) enumerated and a summary of the nature and purpose(s) of the gifts as they appear to be presented in each passage. (Check your summaries by reading the surrounding context in which each passage finds itself.) Finally, make some observations as you compare the four discussions with one another.
- Prayerfully reflect on your own strengths and apparent capacities for service and identify an area in your own life of possible giftedness that you would like to explore or confirm.
- Write a proposal for four weeks of service in which you will rely on this area. Discuss the plan with an Equipping Partner and make any improvements necessary. Then implement your plan.
- Discuss what you learned with the same Equipping Partner.
- Personality Profile
- Complete a spiritual gifts inventory using “Uniquely You in Christ,†a personality profile, D.I.S.C. instrument and gift assessment tool (available through the Godsquad Store or Staff Resources, 800-827-2788), or an online assessment.
- Interview five people who know you well. Ask them for their perceptions of your strengths, unique aspects of your personality, and ways that God has worked (and/or might in the future work) through you to glorify Christ. If possible, include a family member, a mentor, a peer, someone to whom you have ministered, and someone with whom you have lived. Take notes.
- Write a one or two page reflection on what you have learned from the inventory and interviews, weigh the input, and draw your own conclusions.
- Discuss your paper with an Equipping Partner.