As the world moves forward and the church tries to get a handle on the changes that are happening around them, the question to ask is "is the church placing less and less importance on the gifts of the spirit, and conforming to the trends of society?" If the later is the case, then it seems that more and more importance is being placed on peoples natural talents and abilities, instead of what the Holy Spirit has given us as Christians. I am not talking about the fruit of the Spirit, but the gifts of the Holy Spirit. As I search in the Bible to where these gifts are listed, I am left feeling that a mere quotation from the Bible would not suffice here to communicate, what I am trying to say in this article.
Of course you have the Catholic gifts, which are different from the evangelical gifts, and there is a strange feeling that these gifts were not given to edify oneself but to build each other up in our faith. Now I will quote a verse from the Bible, "So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." (Ephesians 4:11-13 NIV) We see here that these gifts are for the building up of the church, most of these gifts are pastoral gifts, and in my opinion these are the most important.
For a church to be alive and functioning properly, we need men and women using their gifts to build the church. There is a common thread that if you are not serving God, you are not using your gifts for the Kingdom. But there are many ways we can use the talents and abilities that God has given us to further the work of the Kingdom, and we can be creative about how we do it. The trick is not to get into some kind of formula, where you guess where you can be most effective and then going about making yourself "effective for the Kingdom." Properly discerned spiritual gifts, will more than often come naturally. It is a shame that less people are not serving in their churches, but it is understandable given the constant insistence by commanding pastors to serve. This can created a climate where your only desire is to serve for the wrong motive and wrong reason, and if you get this right, you might burn out very quickly. It depends in what capacity you serve.
The story of the popular book about finding your purpose that came out years ago, catapulted the idea of mutual accountability and service to levels that will never be reached again. Of course it is still very active in a lot of churches, and probably will be for a long time. The choice to live in this kind of paradigm leaves us feeling after we get out of it, kind of empty for the moment especially if we have some kind of disability that gives us a lot of time on our hands. To work for the church in a way, for free gives a sense of accomplishment if we are unable to work in real life, and to let that go, for whatever reason, should open up new possibilities to use our gifts in other ways. Nobody in this world wants to feel that their life has no purpose or meaning, and we might end up looking for ways to fulfill our reason for being in destructive ways, especially if we are living in isolation. The church was never meant to meet all of our needs, but I think sometimes we think it should.
We go to church on the weekend, meet with God and other believers. Our faith is strengthened, but we wait for that faith to translate into real life change. We just might have been living in this paradigm for so long that we expect this change to happen without making any effort on our own to move forwards in life, and when nothing happened, we blame God for not moving in our life, and we fall right back down into the paradigm of questioning if God really has a purpose for me? We plug in, just to plug right back out again and when faced with church discipline we run to the hills instead of facing what needs to be changed in me? When we discover what we needed to change, we go running again to find some deeper purpose because we doubt ourselves and our own gifts and talents in life, and the work it takes to truly make a difference in society, and in our own lives.
We need to radically shift from "seeing the problem" and doing nothing about it, do doing "something positive" about it. It might be a word of encouragement. It might be clearing our heads, or clearing our rooms. Whatever it is today, we need not fear falling back into fruitlessness, but instead taking advantage of this day and the opportunities it has provided for me, and will continue to provide. Realistically speaking, we need "relief" and if we can provide that relief in a way that God can help us, then we are on our way. Also there is that take up your cross daily and follow me,
thing as well.
Of course you have the Catholic gifts, which are different from the evangelical gifts, and there is a strange feeling that these gifts were not given to edify oneself but to build each other up in our faith. Now I will quote a verse from the Bible, "So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." (Ephesians 4:11-13 NIV) We see here that these gifts are for the building up of the church, most of these gifts are pastoral gifts, and in my opinion these are the most important.
For a church to be alive and functioning properly, we need men and women using their gifts to build the church. There is a common thread that if you are not serving God, you are not using your gifts for the Kingdom. But there are many ways we can use the talents and abilities that God has given us to further the work of the Kingdom, and we can be creative about how we do it. The trick is not to get into some kind of formula, where you guess where you can be most effective and then going about making yourself "effective for the Kingdom." Properly discerned spiritual gifts, will more than often come naturally. It is a shame that less people are not serving in their churches, but it is understandable given the constant insistence by commanding pastors to serve. This can created a climate where your only desire is to serve for the wrong motive and wrong reason, and if you get this right, you might burn out very quickly. It depends in what capacity you serve.
The story of the popular book about finding your purpose that came out years ago, catapulted the idea of mutual accountability and service to levels that will never be reached again. Of course it is still very active in a lot of churches, and probably will be for a long time. The choice to live in this kind of paradigm leaves us feeling after we get out of it, kind of empty for the moment especially if we have some kind of disability that gives us a lot of time on our hands. To work for the church in a way, for free gives a sense of accomplishment if we are unable to work in real life, and to let that go, for whatever reason, should open up new possibilities to use our gifts in other ways. Nobody in this world wants to feel that their life has no purpose or meaning, and we might end up looking for ways to fulfill our reason for being in destructive ways, especially if we are living in isolation. The church was never meant to meet all of our needs, but I think sometimes we think it should.
We go to church on the weekend, meet with God and other believers. Our faith is strengthened, but we wait for that faith to translate into real life change. We just might have been living in this paradigm for so long that we expect this change to happen without making any effort on our own to move forwards in life, and when nothing happened, we blame God for not moving in our life, and we fall right back down into the paradigm of questioning if God really has a purpose for me? We plug in, just to plug right back out again and when faced with church discipline we run to the hills instead of facing what needs to be changed in me? When we discover what we needed to change, we go running again to find some deeper purpose because we doubt ourselves and our own gifts and talents in life, and the work it takes to truly make a difference in society, and in our own lives.
We need to radically shift from "seeing the problem" and doing nothing about it, do doing "something positive" about it. It might be a word of encouragement. It might be clearing our heads, or clearing our rooms. Whatever it is today, we need not fear falling back into fruitlessness, but instead taking advantage of this day and the opportunities it has provided for me, and will continue to provide. Realistically speaking, we need "relief" and if we can provide that relief in a way that God can help us, then we are on our way. Also there is that take up your cross daily and follow me,
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