Transforming Church

Until recently, though, these gifts were a composite list from three different places in the New Testament. Little attention was given to whom, specifically, these gifts had been given. For the last two centuries we grew up in America distracted by a sense of the establishment church. Each congregation was identified with a building located on a particular street in the city or crossroads in the country, and with an ordained minister as its spiritual leader. That minister was in charge of the ministry, except when perceived by the congregation to be misdirected, and generally members of the congregation saw themselves as volunteers to help the minister "do" the ministry. With a continual flow of immigrants coming principally from Europe by boat, these establishment churches felt that all they had to do was keep their doors open, make sure they were providing a quality ministry, and they would grow. And while that was perceived to "work," when the flow of immigrants slowed to a stop, congregations were no longer growing by hundreds, now possibly only by tens.

One thing history has shown us is that the mission of Christ cannot be accomplished by adding ten's, only by multiplying hundred's. Adding ten's, even thirty, forty, fifty members net growth per year, in spite of member denial, will not allow the church eventually to survive. Congregations growing by ten's are in the early stages of plateau and decline. Only getting back to the DNA of the first century church and multiplying by hundreds, even thousands, will claim the victory for Christ.

In the 20th Century a follower of Jesus and a disciple of Jesus were thought to be the same thing. In the 21st Century they are clearly becoming two different people. A follower of Jesus is one who is inspired to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, to live as Jesus lived, willing to accept the example He provided and attempting to live as He would have lived. A disciple, on the other hand, is one who daily walks with the Lord, who is growing in relationship with Him, and who is mission-focused. Disciples serve most effectively using the spiritual gift(s) the Holy Spirit has bestowed upon them, and identifying their distinct ministry to be owned and accounted for. No longer is the focus on using a volunteer's talents and abilities, whether acquired or inherited. Disciples serve employing their gifts in a ministry for which they have passion, all the while clearly committed to making other disciples as well.

Because of this transformation, ministry in the 21st Century has to pay attention to spiritual gift identification. This becomes a ministry in itself. Before entering it, however, there are some dangerous potential pitfalls to be avoided, both in identifying gifts and in coaching their use.

1. First and foremost, it cannot be emphasized enough the need to develop or choose an identification approach that includes all twenty biblically identified gifts spelled out in Rom. 12:6-8, 1 Cor. 12:4-11, 28-30, and Eph. 4:11-13. There has been a huge tendency in more spiritual gift profiles than not to delete some of the original twenty gifts and replace them with talents and abilities. This has mainly been done to accommodate discomfort with some specific gifts, like speaking in tongues and the interpretation of tongues. The compromise not only results in being "off" with one or more of the gifts; it actually has a compounding effect that skews all of the results you get. If your purpose was only to accomplish a moment or glimpse of discovery, then any profile might do. However, if this discovery is to become the foundation for matching ministers with the vision of the congregation, you will NEVER get there. The true spiritual gifts in any congregation should shape the ministry of that congregation. If the Holy Spirit wants you to do it, He will see that you have the gifts to make it happen.

The two profiles we eventually determined worthy of consideration (I'm sure there are others) were Kenneth Haugk's "Discovering God's Plan For You," and Jean Morris Trumbauer's "Sharing the Ministry." Since Trumbauer's program addresses many transformational issues in the congregation, it is much broader than just spiritual gift discovery. And since we were already about three years down the road of restructuring our congregation, it made the choice of Haugk easier. We were not disappointed. Kenneth Haugk's exegesis of the twenty spiritual gifts and couching them in a discovery process are just stellar.

2. Firmly believing the Holy Spirit provides the vision for ministry in a congregation, He also then leads persons with the necessary gifts for that ministry to the congregation. This means your gift discovery process needs to be both very comprehensive and with clear assessment. For this reason advice is that you do not settle for a "quickie" profile that can be taken in a few minutes before, during or after a meeting. This is a process of discovery that should provide clear identification from a number of perspectives. With Haugk's material, the profile is only one of five different discovery paths that end up at the same place. It is not uncommon to doubt what you discover in the first go-around. But when different tracks continue to end up at the same place, you need to pay attention. Time is important to be able to assimilate this as well, whether it's two to six weeks with four to eight sessions for the discovery process alone.

3. Another way the dozens of "quickie" profiles out there fail is with depth; there is no follow-up. It's one thing to discovery your gift(s), but then what? Is this supposed to be just another momentary mountaintop experience, or is it to be a life-changing experience? Anything less than the latter isn't worth the effort pursuing. A good discovery program will have along with it a corollary follow-up mentoring program. As they say, "This is the real payoff for the congregation’s ministry." Not only will a good mentoring program point people to where their passion can be unleashed within existing congregation ministries, but this is where the Holy Spirit will help birth new ministries as well. Haugk's program has a good mentoring track, but if you commit to using it, you will also discover new and added dimensions that will make it all the more effective for your own congregation. Within three years we had gone from nine standing committees for which we had a hard time finding volunteers, to seventy-eight ministry teams that had absolutely no recruitment issue at all.

The result of this journey for myself and our congregation is that, while I do now feel more qualified to put a discovery program together myself, what Kenneth C. Haugk has already put together is a better foundation than I could provide. We still added a number of auxiliary components that fit what we were doing. We went further with mentoring, for example, than the program provided.

Never sell short the opportunity for meal and refreshment breaks as you proceed. What happens at those times is often equally important as what happens in the sessions. Also appreciate, if you are going to do this ministry well, it will not be without some financial expense. When you assess that, you will need to look at the ability of participants to fully or partially "pay." Remember, "free" says the wrong thing as well. Often finding an initial significant gift of financial support assures this ministry getting off on the right foot.

A final reality check is with the long range expectations for this ministry. No one would want to enter this with any lesser goal than reaching the entire congregation. The reality, however, is that even Rick Warren at Saddleback is not able to reach more than about thirty-five percent. Eventually, as part of that reality check for us, we came more to see this ministry as developing a level of leadership in the congregation. That doesn't diminish the aspiration for everyone to participate. If you prepare and enter this ministry with a clear vision of its significance, you will be richly rewarded. I highly recommend it to you. With four or five teams just for this ministry, we have never looked back. In a congregation where there are a lot of exciting things happening, this ministry continues to generate the highest levels of excitement and passion.

Kenneth Haugk's "Discovering God's Plan For You" is a much more comprehensive gifts discovery ministry than the title suggests. Materials are available from Tebunah Ministries, 7053 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63130-4402 (copyrighted 1998). And also receiving recommendation, Jean Morris Trumbauer's "Sharing the Ministry," is available from Augsburg Fortress, #23-2326.

Special Case Study from my own personal experience.

When we tried to apply the best of six profiles in two significant efforts to start a spiritual gift discovery ministry in our congregation, we fell flat on our face. After the second failure we began searching big time for what we were doing wrong. In the second of those significant efforts we had even tried to take the best of two profiles with their questions and construct from them a super profile. As we discovered, the common thread leading to failure was that each of these profiles had compromised the biblical list. I’m not so sure that is always as obvious as it was for us with all of our attempts.

When we finally used one of two newly chosen profiles, both of which recognize all of the biblical spiritual gifts, the results spoke for themselves. We started a spiritual gift discovery program that remains to be one of the most vital and exciting ministries of the congregation

On a personal level, this is how confusing the entire process became. Consistently, when some talents and abilities were allowed to replace actual gifts, with my top seven gifts 85% and higher, I was told I had gifts of #2-administration and #7-writing, neither of which are spiritual gifts, and on top of that #4-evangelism and #6-discernment, which are spiritual gifts, are not really my spiritual gifts. When I finally got to the real twenty, I discovered four gifts that had never shown up in all six previous profiles. Some were not even "in" those profiles. With seven gifts 90% and above, these included #2-apostleship, #3-proclamation, #6-servanthood and #7-encouragement. What a mess until it finally got straightened out. Bottom line: the true results have changed significantly the last eight years of my ministry.