Video Transcript: Gifts and Role in your Calling to Ministry

So, as we think about your external calling, whether that's to ministry or their whether that's  to be an enterprise leader, or whether that's to be using your ministry for philosophy, as your  as your, what you're learning that Christian Leaders Institute, or whatever your program that  

you develop here at Christian leaders Institute, that gift assessment is crucial to drill down  deep in who you are. So God has a story, that's your internal calling, he has called you to  build His kingdom. He has called you to have an eye toward a certain direction. But now  you're looking at how was I created? And we talked about temperament and other of those  kinds of issues. Today, we're in talks to simply about gifts, I want to make a few observations  before I begin this discussion. And we're we gladly afforded to the information from  gifttest.com. And we're grateful that you know, they put that in one organized way. And a lot  of people will disagree about well back study gifted us I get to that one. In my answers, they  have a good overview that sort of is ecuministry, it applies to pretty much non denominational, Asian churches, Pentecostal, non Pentecostal churches, our point is not to  argue a specific gift. But to just give you the information in as you learn your local area with  your local mentorship with your local church organization, you can, you know, deal with, you  know, is that gift more applied here, not applied here. But when it comes to gifts, remember  when we hear about in First Corinthians 13, that the most important is love. The never forget,  you know, that's what happens with humans, we can identify our gifts, and then we can  compete. My gift is better than your gift and the Corinthians together with I follow. Paul, I  follow Apol, you know, he follows Apollos, you know, we've got to get away from any  comparison, while at the same time looking seriously at who God made us to be. Here's some, some observations. First of all, we think about gifts, there'll be overlap of gifts in every list. So  you'll notice that helps, might sound like another gift, and there will be overlap. Secondly,  gifts in humanity go together breeding confidence, not comparison. So when we analyze our  gifts, you have that in the marriage, Okay, a couple gets together, they both have a different  set of gifts and qualities. And what often happens that I see this again, and again, where the  differences the different strengths become points of friction. And often married couples can  like traits related to certain strengths that have absence of the traits related to other  strengths can cause conflict, rather than receiving this in love and enjoying each other's  diversity of gifts, and not trying to compete with one another. Number three, some have more gifting, all have roles to play in many of the gift sets. Now what what do I mean by that? You  know, when I when I think about that, in a lot of ways somebody has like a deeper expression  of the gift of generosity or giving. In yet. If we say to ourselves, Well, I'm not gonna tithe or  give to the kingdom, because that's not my gift. Some may have the gift of generosity, but all  have the role of generosity. All of us are called to, to see what our vision is before the Lord, to  build His kingdom, and to put our resources what God has given us a stewardly way into  seeing the development of his kingdom. So Christian, there's those two, as you contribute,  you are seeing the impact of free ministry training. We all have a role to take that serious, but some of you actually have a developed gift of generosity in some of you, like for instance,  have the ability to do businesses make a lot of money, only because you want to feed that  gift. It gives you so much pleasure to give generously. But there's a difference between role  and gift often. Another thing is sometimes we just have to play roles in areas not in our gift  set. I'll give you an example. At Christian Leaders Institute when we started out, there was  really me. Okay. Now somehow I had to figure out things like administration and all that,  which if I took a gift test would not be high on my gift list. But I had the role of actually figured out how to administer and do various things in it to do help, I had to sweep the facility we  were in, I had to do all of the gifts, I had certain functions in walls, and I was willing before  Christ, to do even things that were not in my gift set that I didn't have. Well, that's not my  gift, I'm not going to do it. No, were called to take a hill, even though it wasn't in my gift set. It was still in my responsibility. Role set, I was responsible as a leader. So a lot of times when  there's a discussion about gifts, we forget that we many times have roles, where again, back  to a new married couple, when a new married couple comes together. They might have  similar gifts, different gifts, but they all have roles. And somehow they have to figure that out. And if neither of them have a certain gift, they better somehow figure out how to share a role. The garbage, for instance, must be taken out of the house. Number four, what do you think 

about gifts, I like to think about gifts as a curious journey of Christian leaders and growth, not  as something that solidifies you in a certain area. And I've noticed that too, where like,  sometimes I had no gifting if I were to take a gift test way first. And I did first entered ministry. Over the years, another set of gifts was developed by the Holy Spirit and experience. So I  always, always was thinking, you know, who am I? What is God doing to me? How the Holy  Spirit changing me and sometimes you receive gifts that you didn't receive earlier in your life. Number four, put the word minister after each gift. And I really believe that I would love and  maybe someday they'll have to do that Christian Leaders Institute. But I could see like  administrative administration, Minister ordination. And sometimes we already do that. But I  liked that idea of like these gifts that we recognize and notice how these gifts intersect with  ordination in minister level ordination. One more thing, and this is just number six, you didn't  even know them. Give me this one is that in the paper is okay. So let's say you're not going to go into church ministry. In you're here for the Enterprise Program, or you're here out of the  restorative justice program. I think this is excellent to think about not only for your  volunteering at a local church, or local ministry, but this analysis will help you in your calling  to be a better business leader, a better local business leader, and it will help you run your  company better. Because in a lot of ways, this is revolutionary thinking from the Bible, that  the Bible just it was like Holy Spirit genius. To some I called to do this and some are called to  do that it was like recognizing the diversity of all of us. And applying this to building the  church, which has been here now for over 2000 years. Well, think about. Think about your  business. Think about anything you were to do anything, a family, it's about gifts and different interests and temperaments and all that. But where are those areas that God has created in  you through the power of the Holy Spirit's excellenence, that you are more happy to use that  gift, and you're more willing to use that gift and you're very effective. Now, I wouldn't say one  more thing real quick. Sometimes, you can get a gift in an area, but it's just not an interest.  And then we talked about that last time. Like there's a lot of people who are gifted in certain  areas, but they have absolutely no interest to do that. And I find you can't force someone and  you can't force yourself to say, Oh, I have this gift, but I have no interest in that area and all  these things. Internally the calling, but also the external things. The things that are  observable, I believe need to match to be that fit to do ministry. So let's talk specifically about the different gifts. The first one we'll do alphabetically is administration. The gift of  administration is the divine gift or ability to organize multiple tasks and groups of people to  accomplish these tasks. In Luke 14, Acts six, and First Corinthians 12 are examples of  application of that gift. So administration, you know, be able to organize tasks, within a  business within a church within a family. That is a gift, that we see that God gives image  bearers, and people renewed through Jesus Christ. apostleship, the gift in or role, I felt that  way, because there's debate, some people believe that apostle shift ended with the apostles,  and that the gift of apostleship, for the role of apostleship is no longer there. I would tend to  believe that the role of apostleship, and I'm going to call it even the gifts exists in the function of starting new things, is the divine strength or ability to pioneer new churches, new  ministries, so planted, overseen and training, I would say that apostleship is one of my gifts  and roles. In though I am not the apostle, like the apostle Paul's an apostle. The function of  starting new things set is something that is definitely within my gift sets. It's in my  temperament set, it's in my interest set, it is my calling set. And I am passionate about  starting new things, and creating new opportunities for ministry training for the reaching of  the world would never get opportunities to do these type of things. And there are several  passages, you can look at yourself. That all talk about the apostleship function, there's  craftsmanship, the gift of craftsmanship is the divine strength or ability to plan in work, build  with your hands and construction environments to accomplish multiple ministry applications.  So remember, the word ministry is to serve. I just think of anybody in the trades, who's a  Christian you're utilizing that gives maybe church and you're also in your work. And, or maybe you're an artist whose love for forms of craftsmanship. And I wear like a lot of craftsmanship is a image bearer type of gift. that harkens back to Genesis chapter two, where we read about  male and female and the great cultural mandate to subdue the earth, to be a steward to  create, to name the animals, all of that stuff to me as craftsmanship. And we in lots of ways, 

we all have roles in our creativity on that. So we all share an aspect, but some, my dad was a  craftsman. He was a welder, a mechanic, and he would even in retirement, he would weld  these grills out of like barrels that Christian camps used throughout the Midwest of the United  States. And he had, he took pride in utilizing his gifts in his person, for ministry, and it's still to this day, though he did some of these girls over 25 years ago, they're still in use at Christian  camps, you know, and I just love that craftsman aspect of the spiritual gifts. And again, these  apply for work related things, enterprise related things as well. Discernment, the gift of  discernment is the divine strength or ability to spiritually identify falsehoods to distinguish  between right and wrong motives, and the spiritual forces that work in situations. Now,  discernment is one of those beautiful gifts and I believe a lot of people have this gift. And we  have to be careful about that gift because that gift to be used by the evil one to be a critical  attitude. But I will tell you, I look for discerning people who have that gift to help me make  major decisions. But the kinds of people that I like, are the ones who when asked. They share  that discernment gift. The people that are very difficult to work with are the ones who have  this gift possibly, but they're not people smart. They just like blurt out what they think you  should do through their discernment and then I feel like they're not discerning their role as  discerners. So do they have the gift of discernment, he got the idea. Evangelism, the gift of  evangelism is the divine strength or ability to help non Christians take the necessary steps to  become born again, Christians. This is one of the gifts that the Lord has blessed me with. And  as a church planter, I have loved the opportunity to share the gospel over and over and over  again, we have a class on evangelism with Ren Broekhuizen, and I just love that class,  because it's a class to develop your gifts, also your role. Sometimes, you're just called to  share the gospel, you may not have the gift of evangelism. But you are called, when asked  when needed to exercise that gift of bringing someone to know the Lord, exhortation, the gift  of exhortation as the divine strength or ability to strengthen comfort or urge others to action  through the written or spoken word and biblical truth. You know, I call this coaching gift, the  gift where you're basically that a way to go get back in the line. Now, again, be careful with  this, that this is more like a gift that is done in a mentoring relationship. You know, if you just  go into a group of people, you don't really know them have no relationship and say, Hi, I'm  Henry, I'm here. I've coached you all on how you shouldn't like take this hill and backfill? No,  no, a lot of times, exhortation gifts connected to leaders who have relationships in these  relationships of people recognize you as a leader, and they want coaching, they want to be  brought where you are in the Lord, or where an organization needs to be. But that is a definite spiritual gift that is illustrated in the Bible, as if you're working with an enterprise. If you're  starting a business, in ample amount of exhortation is crucial. As you build your faith. The gift  of faith has taken is the divine strength or ability to believe in God for unseen supernatural  results in every area of life. That's another gifts that the Lord has granted me with an end. I  tell you, okay, so yesterday, I was in the car, and I was talking to someone on my hands free.  And what happened was somebody called a number from the Grand Rapids area, and I let it  go. So I'm driving, and I'm like, Lord. Is there a reason this person called me? So I call that  person. And that person said, I said, What's your name and he says, I'm Phil. I said, hi Phil. I'm Henry. And what's your last name? He told me his last name. And I heard that last names. I  said, Hey, I need some of those. And their last name is Chicago, are you connected, we got  talking, blah, blah, blah, blah. So talking, and we kept talking. And it turned out that he is a  Christian. He's a business owner. He owns an art internet site with all sorts of Christian art and all of the other things, we're now going to schedule a meeting. And he texts me about how  neat it was that we had this providential meeting. And he claimed that I called him like, just  before, he missed the call, he was calling me back. And I was on the phone with my daughter, so I didn't call him. So somehow, the Lord made that connection, or the back to faith, I sort of  feel that way about our lives. Here we are in our lives, in our connections. And, you know,  we're looking at what is God trying to do today? And what person might come into our life,  one new opportunity comes into our situation. And and that's a beautiful gift in the enterprise  of starting a business or at work, that you're curious, Lord, what do you have for me today?  Who do you have for me to meet today? And I will go forward and give me discernment. If I  should not waste my time in this direction, but give me the ability to see that you have a plan.

Giving the Divine Gifts of giving us the divine strength or ability to produce wealth into give  by tithes, offerings for the purpose of advancing the kingdom of God on earth. Before we talk  about giving, there's the gift of giving. There's the role of giving, that we're all part of healing, the gift of healing of the divine strength or ability to act as an intermediary in faith prayer and by the laying on of hand for the physical healing, mental for the Healing physical, mental or  spiritual sickness. Healing can come from first spontaneously, or through doctors. Healing can be the healing of heaven. Some someone can actually have the greatest healing of all for to  me to live with Christ and to die is gain. Paul had the gift of healing and God said no to him,  and he left Trophimus sick in military, second, Timothy four, verse 20, Erastus remained at  Corinth, and I left Trophimus, who was ill, at Miletus. And there's several passages on this, let  me talk real quick about healing. This one I have seen, over the years, I have prayed for  someone's healing feels as if they were healed on the spot. I pray for others. And there is it  was healed through medical care is like the mud put on the eyes by Jesus. I have prayed for  healing and faith. And the person was translated to glory. This live learned in the holding  Number one is I am not going to try to accuse someone they don't have enough faith. If the  answer to the prayer was, No, I'm taking this person home to be with me. praying for healing  is a very intimate thing to do with the Lord is like Hezekiah asking and he received more than  a decade or more of life. It's for purposes sometimes that we don't see I remember praying  for one woman and a man within a week period, both were healed. They were given each five  years to the month in the thing that we pray for healing came back. But we prayed that the  cancer was completely taken away for five years that I've seen in that same time period,  another woman we prayed for who was translated to glory within a month and had cancer  that we prayed for, you know, I have seen the beauty of healing. And I've seen the beauty of  translation, the glory we read in Psalm 86, precious in the eyes or Lord, are the deaths of His  saints. So, you know, that's precious to. And there's a gift of healing that can be expressed  even in the passing away of someone. God is always at work. So we might be asking  specifically for the healing of someone. There translated glory. But as we're praying, the  presence of God comes a situation and a child far away from God is somehow reach because  the mortality of their mother or father, so illustrates that there's only one hope of Jesus Christ. So you pray for this healing and then I noticed another healing occurs. One more thing we can talk about here is their gift of exorcism. You know, in a sense, the healing of demons. And  while that is not on this list, many includes something that on the list, and I do believe there's  spiritual warfare prayer, and but again, is there a gift of exorcism that is very controversial?  Within the Christian church, I bring it up here because it's important to talk about I have been  used by the Lord to cast out demons is that a gift of exorcism, a role of exorcism, I just have  saw the healing when the demon was removed. I have met people who specifically I observed that they have extra ordinary spiritual warfare gifts. So you guys put that under the the  healing place right here, but know that this list is not necessarily exhaustive of all  possibilities. So healing is a important gift in and again, never make healing about works  righteousness. What I mean by that is like, Oh, you didn't have enough faith, or that person  was going to be healed. I look at if Paul's leaving someone sick in Miletus. Here's Paul with  said whose handkerchief touched people and they were healed in the book of Acts. And he  leaves someone sick. That means is not a merit thing. I can't see that the apostle Paul having  lack of faith, and then also left someone sick. You got my point helps to get this helps is the  divine strength or ability to work in a supportive role for the accomplishment of tasks in  Christian ministry, with the ability to see the need before others do. My mother has a gift of  helps she would just see something before it was Even on anyone else's radar screen, ever a  powerful gift hospitality, to gift to the hospitality is the divine strength or ability to create  warm, welcoming environments for others in places such as your home office, or church, I  believe this gift is one of the most neglected today. And I actually believe people have this  gift. And, and I it's sort of frustrating to me, what I've seen many times where people want to  meet people in neutral places, instead of just welcoming into their living room and sitting with them, and talking. And I'm just going to challenge you know, we talk a lot about race relations and, and so forth. And evangelism and whatnot. I always have this rule that maybe it's more  than rules, maybe it's an observation. Will you have your neighbor over, will you have 

someone not your race over someone that you're "rank" over, will you invite them to your  house, will you generously offer your bathroom. In America or Western world. Many people  are just so worried about germs, or stuff. But I look at it like do you love God's creation? In  

welcome them? I noticed that churches, churches, often stagnate. If there's one thing I  noticed is that hospitality has stagnated. I remember one church that was called to restart,  there's very little money. And I was part of it. And they have a lot of programs. So basically, I  said, Let's just cut a lot of programs and do one thing well, when someone walks in the door,  let us offer hospitality and get that person to our homes, and our family. And you know what I  noticed is that the Lord use that powerful way. And that people started coming to our church,  we had no programs, but we had exercise, the gift of hospitality. So this is an important one is often very neglected today. Intercession, the gift of intercession is the divine strength or  ability to stand on the gap and prayer for someone, something someplace believing for  profound results. I love this concept of walking around the neighborhood and praying for the  neighborhood you live in. I love for those who have that intercession, gift, the exercise it, and  I have a role. Is that not my gift. I when I think about intercession, often I'm interested in  someone at night, I'm thinking about them, I'm praying for them. And but there are people  who actually spend hours, interceding for others is as a spirit, spiritual gift, word of knowledge and the gift of the word of knowledge of the divine strength or ability to bring truth to a  situation by supernatural revelation. This is often accompanied by a word from God. And  again, the strength of this is that the Holy Spirit does give people intuitions. But again,  because we have fallen humanity, we're falling, we're broken. We're very careful about those  gifts, that we don't use what's called the God card. But let's say you're we're praying, and we  often think of something. And then we go over to our neighbor and said, The Lord told me  that you need to sell your house, or the Lord told told me that this scripture passage applies  to you. Now, the Lord may have said that, but we also have to trust the Lord is speaking to  them. Now, if someone approaches you and says, you know, I'd like to know if the Lord lays  on your heart something new, here's my problem. And then they ask you then exercise that  gift of word of knowledge. Leadership, the gift of leadership is the divine strength or ability to  influence people at a level while directing and focusing them on the big picture, vision or idea. So there's several passages on that leadership. You know, show me a leader, show me their  followers, if someone may say their leader, but if no one trusts them, no one sees that gift.  Maybe their leaders, leadership is more limited. But everyone still has a role of leader Do you  lead yourself in your walk with God, you lead your children if you're if you have a family. So  again, some may have the gift of leadership. But we all have somehow a role of leadership,  mercy, to gift to mercy as the divine strength or ability to feel empathy and care for those  who are hurting in any way. You know in 2015 in the last quarter of that year, my mom passed away, and she had to be in a nursing home. And I saw in this Catholic charity hospital, vivid  examples of people, believers, who had the gift of mercy. And I was amazed that how God has given that gift of mercy in the eventual passing of my mother in the last day of 2015. And  many of you have that gift of mercy, and apply that gift, miracles, the gift of miracles and the  divine strength or ability to alter the natural outcomes of life in a supernatural way through  prayer, faith, and divine direction. You know, many people say will do miracles happen? My  answers, they do? Do some people have the gift of miracle how the Apostle Paul had the gift  of miracles. And I have seen many, many miracles. But one thing I noticed today, the  miracles, from what I have seen, and I and I don't know where you live, that those miracles  bring glory to God, and there's a purpose to the miracles, because they look, I have come to  believe that Christianity is not to be branded or reduced to the miraculous, because it is the  miraculous resurrection from the dead is the miraculous, a new life in Christ. Conversion is the miraculous. We don't want to, you know, be branded as Christians are the ones who, who just  perform miracles or work because we actually are the ones who believe the whole earth was  created by God, the whole universe, and that he created these wonderful laws of creation,  that consistently work themselves out. But in relationship to our Heavenly Father, we pray  that sometimes what seems should be a natural outcome is touched by the hand of God. And  I've seen that. And in ministry, I've seen that. And anytime we get a word now since that's a  miracle, anytime we get direction, that's a miracle. Anytime someone becomes converted, 

that's a miracle. But we don't want to be kinda like the Wow, Christianity, where we're taking  attention off of Christ and His death, His resurrection, His ascension, his kingdom. Pastor  Shepherd, the gift of Pastor Shepherd is the divine strength or ability to care for the spiritual  needs of others by nourishing and mending life issues, and a lot of times. This is what a local  church would call a pastor with that gift. Now, part of that gift is many, many other roles. But  a lot of times a pastor is considered that person or prophecy that gift of prophecy of the  divine strength is ability to communicate God's truth and heart in a way that calls people to a  right relationship with God. Hit up a preacher, that sometime you'll have a pastor, that a  pastor, but doesn't really feel comfortable about preaching, or you have vice versa. But again, in the body, all the gifts are there. So there's the preacher who may not have the strongest  gifts and Pastor but then he may have shepherding a ministers or shepherding elders to help  that preacher if the preachers gifts, you know a lot of times to what you start out as  struggling with, let's say, preaching, you start developing who you are, and the Holy Spirit  gives you more of that divine gift of communication, and so forth. I tell you, all these gifts  amazed me their service, the gift of serving others to me this is very similar to the gift of help  is the divine strength or ability to smaller, great tasks and working for the overall good of the  Body of Christ. How I believe is different from helps is that ther gift of service is like, is like the customer service attitude. Like some people can just see tasks, while do they have the  answers service is not specifically related to, to any specific skill or instead it's related to just  sort of that servant attitude, actually is I think about I probably would have put them both  together helps and service, very similar. Teaching. The gifts of teaching is the divine strength  or ability to study and learn from the scriptures, primarily to bring understanding and depth to other Christians. And I love listening to great teachers. I mean, Dr. David Feddes, who you're  going to be exposed to, to at Christian Leaders Institute is a great teacher. He loves teaching,  he's articulate, and we all know great teachers, you know, preachers are often the ones who,  like, get motivated teachers are the ones who like give in sites that you've never saw  something that way, tongues and interpretation to give to tongues into divine strength or  ability to pray in the heavenly language, to encourage your spirit and to commune with God.  The gift of tongues is often accompanied by interpretation is to be used appropriately. This  gift is not meant to divide the congregation are meant to mean that someone is not a  Christian, if they do not have tongues. Again, this is an area where there's much controversy  of divisions in the church. And it really should not be word of wisdom, the gift of wisdom is the divine strength or ability to understand or bring clarity to situations and circumstances. often  through the applying of scripture in practical ways. Where the word of knowledge might be  something really quick from God to a situation, the word of wisdom is sort of, like, you know,  how to act in a certain area? How does Scripture relate to your worldview right now? How  does the path of your life connect with the Word of God? And what's the Holy Spirit? Other  researchers, people who have a who are just wise, it's a gift of the Holy Spirit. So there you  have it, these various gifts. And there's probably more, and there's different debate on  combining some together like, I just I would probably put help and service together, but it  took the list from this website because I thought it was overall good list. And you know,  maybe somebody who would put exorcism in there or in others would not. But as I see this, it  is helpful in there the test that you can take at this website, we have very helpful for you to  take a free test in seeing where the test indicates you are in test what the test says with what other people say about you. For instance, have you say that, you know, hey, you know, I have the gift of teacher and then you say do I Do you like it when I teach in a two are like oh, yes.  Enthusiastic, yes. You know, you can start to get that confirmation. As I look at the gifts, I just  want to reiterate one really important thing. Do not compare yourself to others. Stay totally  humble. Enjoy the curious conversation and grow and let the gifts be that which helps you get mile markers of how you are confirmed in your calling for ministry.