I've Been Thinking About This…

Going through some old blogs in Bloglines, I bumped into one by Tony Morgan that pointed to a site that evaluates spiritual giftedness. That site starts with the passages in the New Testament that refer to spiritual gifts (Romans 12:3-8; 1 Corinthians 12:1-31; 1 Corinthians 14:1-40; Ephesians 4:7-16; 1 Peter 4:7-11) and builds a list of those gifts, then asks a lot of questions (125 in all) designed to draw out your gifts. It’s all a bit Myers-Briggs-ish (not a bad thing – INTJ here three times in a row). I don’t see it as the complete be-all and end-all, because I think that neither Paul nor Peter was doing anything more than giving a list of examples of giftedness – those listed weren’t God’s full list; if they were, they’d all be listed every time.

However, it does give an indication of inclination to certain ministries based on the gifts it draws out. My church uses a list similar to this in the SHAPE class that we have everyone take when they become a member. So just for griggles and gins, I took it again. It only takes about 10-15 minutes.

Unsurprisingly, the areas that take no major physical effort were my high scores – Wisdom, Apostle, Leadership, Shepherd, Administration, Knowledge & Teaching. Mid-range were the more physical gifts – Missionary, Voluntary Poverty, Giving, Evangelism, Service, Hospitality & Helps (Service was dead center!), and the purely spiritual were mostly and pathetically waaay down at the bottom – although I was surprised that Prophecy, Exhortation and Faith fell above the physical gifts.

Give it a go – what are your high points? Spill the beans in the comments below.

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I’m becoming convinced that God has started to dismantle denominations. They served a purpose at one time – they fostered unity among a congregation and between like-minded congregations, but more than that, they helped to make concrete those aspects of faith that were essential. Formularizing faith has an advantage when people need to understand what their faith is all about – doing so comes at the risk of worshipping the formula rather than the faith. When we get too passionate about KJV versus NASB versus NIV, or about choir versus worship team – then we’ve lost the point of it all.

Again:

Tradition and Institutionalization are the enemies of Creativity; their weapons are comfort and safety – and they foster sloth, conformity, acquisition and control.… and you can quote me on that.

What seems to be taking the place of the relative permanence of denominations are the multisite churches. These

• spread the Gospel and they have a focused approach – a unity – that is stable for a while. They can be dispersed across one or more states – even countries.
• are innovative, creative and malleable – something that denominations cannot be.
• are sustaining tremendous growth because they are young, dynamic and driven.
• often have a very charismatic leader at the helm, who provides energy and vision.

Any single multisite church will die off or dissipate after a few decades as the leader slows down, moves on or passes away; its footprint can be picked up by another multisite, or by some completely new form of church that God may already be moving into place.

Another way that God seems to be working today is in combining efforts across congregations. Traditionally, churches that are already established have been at odds with a new church coming to town. They resent the potential loss of congregants, and I’m sorry to say that the minister is usually leading the way in this thought process. But we are called to unity, not jealousy…

So it was refreshing to see this tweet from Geoff Surratt in late Jaunuary –

Heard through Twitter that NewSpring is coming to Charleston. Glad to hear it, we can use the help reaching the lost in the Low Country.

(@GeoffSurratt is a pastor in a large multistate multisite church called Seacoast based in Charleston, SC; @PerryNoble is the lead pastor of rapidly-growing NewSpring based out of Anderson, SC). This is out of the ordinary – even though it shouldn’t be. We are all in the Body of Christ; we have the same mission in Matt 28; we were all saved by the same Savior.

Different churches reach different people. They’re in different parts of town or the state; they have different leaders who have different skills in reaching out, in speaking, in connecting to others. One church might be blue-collar, another mostly white-collar. One church loves a liturgical service, another a contemporary one.

Could it be – just possibly – that God wants to treat churches as He does people? That he has given them different gifts with the specific intention that those gifts be used to compliment each other?

• A church in a poor part of town provides the opportunity for a (financially) wealthier church to come beside it and receive Grace through sharing finances and also hard work – and thereby to recognize that financial and social privilege is not always the boon that the world makes it out to be (sometimes it can be a terrible impediment).
• A church in India is in a tremendous position to do good for all those around it – it’s at ‘ground zero’, so to speak. It’s poor financially, but what it can buy (food, clothes, buildings) it can obtain locally at a very low cost compared to an American church. A church in the US can’t easily help physically, but it can afford to send money and perhaps a few people to give support and guidance to the fledgling church. The effect on the Indian church could be enormous, and the backwash is pure Grace.

(Interestingly, it’s the multisite church leaders that seem to be setting the pace here – we rarely if ever hear of leaders of denominations traveling overseas to work on ground-setting for church planting. Yet Pete Wilson ( @PeteWilson ), the lead pastor of CrossPoint Church in Nashville, TN is in India as I write this; Perry Noble (@PerryNoble) was in Kenya last year.)

So I see this as part of God’s way forward for us. The missionary part we’ve been doing for a while – but the connection of multiple disparate churches in the same town – that’s so rare it can be thought of as new, and I see that aspect growing in the coming decade.

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Well, www.500Uniforms.org succeeded in raising the funds they needed for the school uniforms, so we can check that one off! In its place, I’ve bumped Oceans of Mercy’s Soup Club. I read about it this morning at one of the best sites I know – KristieApplesauce – who is a missionary in South Africa for Oceans of Mercy with her husband.

• It’s not cheap – it costs $300 to install the soup kitchen first, and $100 to run it each month.
• On the other hand, it’s not expensive, either – imagine feeding a child for $0.06 per meal!

This covers all food and equipment for feeding 50 kids for 6 days a week. Read the details here on Kristie’s blog. It’s not such an easy thing for one person to manage, but how about your church or youth group? The key here is recognizing that this is a long-term commitment – you can’t just start this and drop it after 3 months.

Whatever you do about the soup club, do check out Kristie’s blog. It’s one of the 2 blogs at the very top of my list.

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You know how each of us is given certain gifts? Some people are brainy, some are good looking, some are wealthy, some are good with others. You know that old saw that goes:

“Heaven is where the police are British, the cooks are Italian, the lovers are French, the mechanics are German and it’s all organized by the Swiss. Hell is where the cooks are British, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, the police are German, and it’s all organized by the Italians.”

I’ve had some incredibly good meals in Britain, but you get the idea. It’s as if certain countries have gifts too; a gift that is so evident and specific that the country is famous for it. What’s America’s gift? Some Europeans might claim it was loud vacationers with loud clothes, but most people know that’s really only Bostonians when they travel. No, I think America has been given the gift of wealth. The question is, what are we doing with it? How are we using our ‘talent’? If we’re burying it (keeping it for ourselves), that’s not going to go down well with God (Matt 25:14-30).

Christmas is coming. It will be nice for most of us; not so nice for some. For the people in the first group, here are some opportunities to make it nicer for some folks in the second group:

Give shoes

Anne Jackson (twitter @FlowerDust) is working with Soles4Souls to provide 50,000 pairs of shoes for people who have no footwear.

Watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd431iyMKVM

Nashville-based Soles4Souls(TM) facilitates the donations of both new and used shoes, which are used to aid the hurting worldwide. Since its inception, Soles4Souls has distributed more than 3.5 million pairs (or one pair every 23 seconds) to people in 61 countries, including Honduras, Romania, Thailand, and the Sudan. The charity has been featured on CNN Headline News, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, ABC News, FOX, CBS, and hundreds of regional outlets around North America. Soles4Souls is a 501(c)(3) recognized by the IRS; donating parties are eligible for tax advantages. Visit www.giveshoes.org for more information.

Give school uniforms.

Shaun King (twitter @ShaunKing), pastor of the new Courageous Church has started a site called http://500uniforms.org/ to try to help students of Bethune Elementary School in Atlanta, GA – 98% of whom live below the national poverty level – get a school uniform and a toy for Christmas.

Watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e1d9atkPZA

Give water.

Living Water is a Christian organization that is trying to provide clean water to communities that can’t afford to drill their own wells. Sierra Leone, Liberia, Namibia, Brazil, India, Sudan, Ethiopia and dozens more countries currently – 6,500 projects so far.

Watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NxFNlOFr9I

Give freedom from slavery.

More people are in slavery now than ever before in the World’s history. More people than were drawn from Africa over all 400 years of trans-Atlantic slave trading. 27,000,000 slaves. A number so large that it seems inconceivable today. To be “trafficked” is to be deceived or taken against your will, bought, sold and transported into slavery for sexual exploitation, sweat shops, child brides, circuses, sacrificial worship, forced begging, sale of human organs, farm labour, domestic servitude. A staggering betrayal of the innocent. Help Stop the Traffik.

Watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxBcjSKD6gM

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