Identifying YOUR Spiritual Gifts (Survey Says....)

SITREP So here you are: the Holy Spirit urging you to Pay it Forward, and newly aware that everyone has one or more Spiritual Gifts. You’ve even begun to suspect what your own Spiritual Gifts might be, but you'd like some external validation before diving headfirst into volunteering. Look at you, getting all social-scientific!

Insert my bad Bob the Tomato impression: "Have we got a quiz for you."

You know who's cool? Bob the Tomato. You know who's even cooler? Bob the Tomato's LAWYER.

Anyhoo, Lifeways’ Spiritual Gifts Survey evaluates and identifies your spiritual strengths. There are no incorrect answers, and all you need to do is honestly rate some statements from 1 to 5 based on the following scale: 5 Definitely true for you. (100% of the time)

4 Usually true for you. (75% of the time)

3 About half the time, true for you. (50% of the time)

2 About a quarter of the time, true for you. (25% of the time)

1 Not at all true for you. (Never)

There are 80 statements, but they’re incredibly brief and swiftly presented. To alleviate any self-consciousness, I’ll even share some of my own responses. But please refrain from letting that influence your thinking; there are no incorrect answers here. The only person who will see your results is YOU (unless you’re a blogger who’s a month past deadline). Sample statements. (My scores: your milage may/will vary) 5 I am willing to study and prepare for the task of teaching.

1 I enjoy entertaining guests in my home.

1 I like to meet visitors at church & make them feel welcome

5 I can give a clear, uncomplicated demonstration.

3 I enjoy doing little things that help people.

Now that's not so hard, is it? So print out the Survey and fill in your numbers.

Be honest, nobody sees your scores but you. Scoring

Scoring the survey is easy.

Just put your 1-5 number in the item number block and when all of them are populated, sum them up on the right side. That total is your score for that specific Spiritual Gift.

When filled out, it should look something like this:

Examine Your Spiritual Gift Scores Relative to One Another. See Any Trends? Did You Surprise Yourself?

Focus on the “Total” score for each Spiritual Gift. Higher scores indicate strength in that Gift, while lower scores suggest less proficiency. The key is to identify your strengths and weaknesses because serving in your strengths leads to early wins that motivate you to serve more frequently. Were your scores surprising or what you had anticipated? Trend analysis can be challenging, and sometimes visualizing the data can be helpful. That’s why we need a graph! Everyone loves graphs, right? Right? Bueller? Graphing Your Spiritual Gift Scores Visualizing your scores is easy, just find the empty graph at the end of the survey, and put the Total number in for that Spiritual Gift. And that's where our title graphic comes back into play....

Him again?

Analysis

Look at you! You just did "cluster correlation analysis via self report measures employing a Likert scaled questionnaire". Fancy, huh?

For the less insufferably pretentious, just look at which Spiritual Gift scores are high for you, and which scores are low for you. Anything stick out?

Again, we needed a guinea pig for illustrative purposes, and PETA's still ticked off from last time (don't ask), so we'll use my scores. In this case, the subject (see how I'm depersonalizing already?) scored high in Administration, Teaching, and Knowledge, and lower in Leadership, Shepherding, Hospitality, and Prophecy. There's a pretty clear picture here: the high scores are fairly clerical and academic, and all but one of the low scores have a very high social component. So maybe don't post this person at the doors on Sunday, but he could be great in a small Freedom Group. RESULTS

And guess what? That’s precisely where our subject found himself: co-facilitating The Bible Recap Class every Wednesday night at City on A Hill. The class meets from 7 to 8 PM in Room A203. So look at your own results, do you see a trend? Find your high scores and see which areas they apply to in Applying Your Spiritual Gifts (even if you have no idea what they are). Then reach out to City on A Hill DFW and see if there are any opportunities to serve. YOU WON'T REGRET IT.

I blame YOU, Derrick!

Note: Derrick Bledsoe’s meticulously crafted and insightful GIFTED series serves as the inspiration for this post. Fortunately, it remains accessible on YouTube. While you may need to search for the later videos, all sessions are still available. This series played a pivotal role in my decision to volunteer. So, yes, this is all Derrick’s fault (and I’m grateful for it).

During Covid, the author rediscovered cityonahilldfw.com. Post-vaccination he snuck into a service and felt zero social pressure. He's a member now and everyone knows he sucks at small talk. They don't care: it ain't that kind of church.