What is a Spiritual Gift?

A spiritual gift is a piece of God’s heart and power flowing through us. It is a gift from the Holy Spirit for us to offer to others. It is given because God chooses it for us. It is God’s design to partner with God’s people in transforming/redeeming the earth and all its peoples. Our giftedness is woven into the very fabric of our being. You can see it in small children. It is operative in folks who consider themselves religious and those who don't. Observation would indicate that everyone is gifted and motivated by their gifts. However, the fullness of God's love becomes a life-giving, artesian spring flowing through us when we are aware and intentional about being connected with God's heart and Spirit via our gifts. It is also my observation that giftedness can be used in service of both good or evil, used well or misused. This seems to be part of the truth expressed in Romans 11:29:

"God's gifts and God's call are under full warranty--never canceled, never rescinded." The Message

"For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable." NRSV

We are all a tangle of giftedness and coping mechanism, glory and brokenness. We all have the important task of Listening-past-and-through the human tangle to hear and see the fingerprint of God working through one another. It is one of the tasks of spiritual formation to increasingly remove from the barnacles of an encrusted life that obscures the Light and beauty of radiant faithfulness.

Do I have only one spiritual gift?

We can see from Paul's conversation with the Corinthians in Romans 12 that there is no expectation that a person is supposed to have all the gifts. Nor that it is our responsibility to try to acquire giftedness we do not have. The Divine Design is that all of us hold a partial piece of the wholeness of God. Everyone matters. The small, weak, invisible members are just as important in creating the whole as the strong and visible. We all become whole as we connect our giftedness to that of others.

It also does not seem to be true that we have only one spiritual gift. We seem to have a cluster of giftedness that we use most of the time. There are clearly gifts that are not our forte. There are other gifts that we seem to have on the “shelf ” and are used as circumstances require. It doesn’t matter how many or how few gifts make up the cluster. There are infinite possibilities! All are wonderful and important!

Jesus often spoke of inaugurating the Kingdom of God/the Realm of God operative on earth just like it would be in heaven. He taught and modeled what that would look like--and the unfolding life of the church tried to put legs to Jesus' teachings. One radical part of the Kingdom was a reordering of community. No longer would communities be ruled by a leader who was entrusted to "rule" all others. Rather the communities of God would function with the interdependence and partnership with one another through their giftedness. Life in holy community is more like a kaleidoscope of ever-changing configurations among the gifts. A line dance of continuously changing partners. Our incompleteness is not a flaw! It is part of a more wondrous design of respect and reliance on the other. We are knit together--not because we are the same, but because we need one another's "otherness."

In other cases, some gifts have been so stereotyped that we can't recognize ourselves in them. For instance, evangelism has become a word that often raises images of unpleasant pressure and imposition. So many folks refuse to even consider this a gift in themselves because of their fear and anger at its misuse. Yet the biblical gift of evangelism is the delight in sharing real answers with real expressed need. It is the "yes-ness" of answering those tender movements of God in another. It is one of the sweetest parts of reaching lovingly and respectfully into a broken and wounded world.

Are some gifts more important than others?

Absolutely not! Every gift is essential to the work of God. Everyone counts! If we refuse to be faithful with “the hand we were dealt” we are in rebellion against God and we are sabotaging the work of God on earth. The lowliest bolt or nut on an airplane is the difference between a successful flight and a crash.

What is the difference between a gift and a talent?

A talent is a natural ability that we were born with or trained into. We may be talented in music, manual dexterity, conceptual thinking, creativity, etc. A spiritual gift is the way that God reveals God’s Love through us. Our ministries are the intertwining of our gifts and talents. Talents are often the vehicle we naturally use to “transport” our gifts of the Spirit.

We commonly talk about a person having a gift of music or a gift of art. In this paradigm, the musical and artistic ability is "the talent" and how it is shaped is determined by the giftedness of the person.

How do I recognize my spiritual gifts?

– By what games you played when you were a child

– By what you love to do

– By what you automatically do

– By what gives you energy

- By what is so natural you think everyone “should” do it/

be it/know it

- By those things that seem to have surprisingly anointed

results

- By those things that people feel touched by God through

you

- By the mistakes you make

Our gifts are so much a part of us, that not only do we not recognize them for what they are. We assume that everyone is wired like we are. Our giftedness is a lens through which we see and evaluate the world. The first step of gift recognition is to be aware of what gives you energy and what comes naturally to you. The second step is to get feedback about how others are impacted for good through you. A final step is prayerful consideration of your gift with your anchor committee. It is often the case that others see things in you that you have not taken into account because it comes naturally to you and you didn't realize that others were touched by God through it. Sometimes we mis-identify the movement in us, and the group can help us be clearer about how God does or does not work through us.

Gifts in Community

Since spiritual gifts are God's design in every human, everyone counts. The life of the community must prayerfully attend to what is offered by each person--without regard to age, gender, race, class, cultural differences. God speaks through the most surprising sources-- and we need to be on tippy toes expecting the unexpected. What the community needs to hear the most may well come through the person whom they least want to hear it from. However, while every gift counts, all gifts cannot be given the same weight and urgency at the same time. Gifted communities are not democracies based on making everyone happy or comfortable. They are orchestras in which the instruments play at the direction of the conductor. The soloist in one movement may have rests in another. The unisons, the harmonies and even the dissonances are part of the symphonic whole.

Spiritual gifts are held in natural tension with one another. The design for the community of faith is not unanimity, but complementary perspectives and strengths united with a common Spirit. Our American form of Christianity has divided the family of God into smaller and smaller segments of folks who agree with one another. And concurrently decided that those who think and perceive like us are "right" and those who differ are "wrong." In our communities, there are distinct, God given and anointed differences. These differences are made whole through cooperation, trust and partnership. This is not an abstract concept: You really don't understand or even like folks that have gifts opposite from yours. I think that 95% of the problems of Meetings and Churches are caused by folks not understanding one another’s giftedness. When this inevitably leads to conflict our communizes do not know how to move from conflict to cooperation.

There are three orientations of gifts: gifts of perception, gifts focused toward the group, gifts focused outward. These gifts are designed to tend to different functions in the community. Those with perception gifts are the GPS, the guidance system of the group. Some of the gifts are hard-wired to care deeply and be empowered to create and maintain a healthy community. Other gifts are designed to reach outward to extend God's care into the world. Most of us have seen these differences in action! The trick is to move past our own preferences into honest respect for those different than ourselves.

We often get stuck in "the way it has always been done" and forget to ask God how we might configure ourselves differently to be faithful to our callings. There are infinite possibilities when all of our gift clusters move together in harmony and with openness of heart.

Jan Wood, a recorded Friends minister, is an experienced retreat leader who offers spiritual gifts retreats for churches, Meetings, organizations and businesses. She has served in institutional roles as a pastor, campus minister, professor, administrator, founder and director of GOOD NEWS Associates as well as in non-institutional ministries including prayer, writing, speaking, organizational consulting and spiritual direction. The through line is that she loves helping groups and individuals get “from here to there."