Gifts and Call

4/29/04

During Lent our congregation suspended ministries and formed Spiritual Life Groups (Reclaiming Evangelism, Page 66) focused on the theme, "Journey Inward, Journey Outward." We used Elizabeth O'Connor's book by that title as a resource. For those who had not read her prior book, Call To Commitment, they read this one. The hope was that as our people read about a church (Church of the Savior) that models the kind of covenant community we aspire to be, they would get a better sense of the direction toward which we are moving. We were also hoping that all of this would prepare everyone for making a deeper commitment to some form of ministry by discovering their Spiritual Gifts.

But?the truth is, I have always found Spiritual Gifts to be a confusing subject, despite all the gift "inventories" available (go on line and you will find pages of them). As a result, I have devoted more attention to helping lay people discern their call to ministry than working on their spiritual gifts. Yet, I felt guilty about saying we were a gift evoking community, but doing very little about it.

About three weeks into Lent, as we were talking a lot about gifts and call, my feeling of uncertainty about both made me decide to go to the people who have been working with gifts and call for almost 60 years - Gordon and Mary Cosby, founders of the Church of the Savior. In a subsequent telephone call, I reached Mary (Gordon was not home). What she said was incredibly simple and incredibly profound, at least for us here at Spirit of Joy. Let me share that conversation with you as best I can remember it.

"Mary, " I said, "I've called because I am confused about spiritual gifts and lay ministry. I need to know, just what exactly does the Church of the Savior believe a spiritual gift is?"
"Well, Jan, we believe your Spiritual Gift is your basic personality. This is the gift God has given to the church to build it up. This is the gift God wants to use in ministry. Your basic personality. It can be expressed in numerous ways, but the gift is always the same. It's your personality."
"Sounds like to me," I responded, "that I have made this thing too complicated, when you're saying it is quite simple. Know your basic personality and you will know your gift."

"That's what we believe here," she said. "And, yes, it's true, I think we've made gifts too complicated. We've also done the same thing with call to ministry. Years ago I asked God to show me the ministry He wanted me to do. I prayed and prayed, ?Please, God, show me what you want me to do.' Finally, I heard God say to me, ?Well, Mary, just do what you want to do!'"

"Just do what you want to do." Wow! It is not an exaggeration to say that that one sentence changed my life and my ministry, almost instantly. I have shared what she said with our congregation several times now, and every time I do there is almost a vocal collective response of "Yes. This finally makes sense to us!" One couple who were becoming frustrated wanting to do ministry but being in a ministry group that didn't fit them have simply "taken off" in a new ministry since hearing what Mary said.

We are seeing the same effect because of her definition of Spiritual Gifts. The Monday after I first talked about what Mary said in the Sunday sermon, one of our men found a web site that is a shortened version of the Myers-Briggs personality inventory. He suggested we ask everyone to go to the site, take it and then let the site score it. He also suggested we have a gathering to go over what the various personality types mean. We are doing that this coming Sunday after church during a special luncheon for this purpose.

Our entire congregation is for the first truly working on gifts and ministries because of what Mary Cosby said. I have not seen this much enthusiasm for either in all my ministry. I fully expect several new ministries to emerge in the coming months. And I also believe if you were to ask any of our people what their spiritual gift is, they would tell you with confidence that the gift God is using to bless our church is their basic personality.

I don't know if this will help any of you, but as a pastor it has helped me, and it is making a significant impact on our congregation. Tell people their basic personality is their Spiritual Gift, and you will see their eyes light up. And when they say they don't know how to find their ministry, tell them just to do what they want to for God. I think you will see the same reactions we are now seeing.
 
Jan G. Linn - Spirit of Joy Christian Church, Lakeville, MN