Leadership

The Need for Spiritual Gifts Workshops

by J.W. Phillips
04/01/25
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The Need for Spiritual Gifts Workshops

It seems that when some people hear that salvation is gained by faith and not works, they say, “Thank you, Lord” and refuse to do any.

Had they read the next verse, these people would have seen the immense importance good works do have. “For we are His workmanship”—literally, His masterpiece, His work of art— “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).

So, yes, good works won’t save us, but they can be a demonstration that we are saved.

It is an awesome thought to imagine that God had a specific work he wanted you to do. Yet there are many in the church who get into their third or fourth decade of life and can’t imagine what that might be.

What about you? Are you satisfied that what you are doing is what God from eternity past envisioned for you?

Most of the people who come to church don’t do any kind of church-related ministry; and the few who do spend very little time doing it. So even they can’t imagine that this is the great plan God had for their life.

Properly understood, our service for God, if it even exists, is to be supernaturally undertaken.

So that you can better discern the divine design for your life, let’s do a little theology here.

Scripture's Guidance
Scripture declares “we are God’s fellow workers” (I Corinthians 3:9 ESV). As an expression of his belief in us, and for the furtherance of our own joy, God invited us to join his team, to enlist in his ministry, to work conjointly with the Lord Jesus.

However, what Scripture sets forth is more than what it first seems. Not working with him—that would have been good—but working as him.

Ephesians 1 further explains this truth when it states that God gave Jesus “to be head over all things to the church, which is his body….” (vss. 22, 23 ESV).

What an elevated, exalted view! Scripture says we are to function as a part of Jesus’ body.

Think about that.

To serve like God wants us to serve, the body must be responsive to the head, right?

So how would we describe a body that never receives messages from the head? Vegetative! And how would we describe a body that intermittently does what the head says? Spastic!

And is this what the Bride of Christ supposed to be—spastic, if not brain-dead?

But this is painfully close to being an accurate portrayal of the church today.

Bud Wilkinson, the former coach of the Oklahoma Sooners and later the Saint Louis Cardinals, once defined a football game as: “50,000 people desperately needing exercise, watching 22 players desperately needing rest.” That almost sounds like some churches, doesn’t it? A few are overworked, while the majority does next to nothing.

If our service is to be an extension of Jesus’ ministry, then it must be undertaken in the same way Jesus’ ministry on earth was undertaken, with the Spirit empowering.

Our efforts, our talents—disciplined and devoted as these may be—should never trusted to do God’s work. Indeed, we would be imposters if that’s how we served him! The need is to be endowed with spiritual gifts.

A spiritual gift is a God-given ability to minister in some way beneficial to the enlargement or enhancement of God’s kingdom.

Upon conversion, every Christian is given at least one spiritual gift. G.D. Watson wrote, “The Creator has never given all his gifts in full measure to any one person … his plan is that of supplementary service.”

Hence, different members of the body—each with different abilities, each with different assignments—are to function cooperatively with others in the body.

You may be the little toe in the body in the body of Christ, but that little toe is important!

Dizzy Dean had one of the greatest arms in baseball. Baseball aficionados report this member of the notorious “Gashouse Gang” was almost unhittable when he pitched. His ratio of wins to losses is one of the best in baseball history. Nevertheless, Dizzy Dean’s pitching career ended prematurely because of a line drive during an All-star game that injured his toe.

What need does the body have for a toe? Ask ole’ Diz. His meteoric rise to pitching glory catastrophically ended—all because of a toe.

God wants every one of his spiritual gifts discovered, developed, and deployed.

The Leaders' Assistance
The elders in the church are to oversee this. That's their job. According to Ephesians 4::12, they are to function “for the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry.”

But are they doing it? Is the church utilizing her capacities in an optimum way?

No, if a business underutilized its personnel and resources as badly as the church does, it would be out of business fast!

A.W. Tozer observed, “From what I see and sense in evangelical circles, I would have to say that about ninety percent of the religious work carried on in the churches is being done by ungifted members.

True, the church has made some progress in recent years by having church members complete a spiritual gifts questionnaire. That’s a start. This progress, however, was more limited than it needed to be because church leaders didn’t provide follow-up.

That follow-up should have included individual counseling after completing the questionnaire. The purpose for this follow-up is to provide a brief description of each gift with elevated scores, and to identify types of ministries that correspond to each gift discussed.

Even during these follow-up discussions, we shouldn't regard these questionnaires as infallible, nor all the answers given as accurate.

Where uncertainty surfaces, this might entail focusing on a key question in the scoring of that gift to see if, upon further reflection, the answer changes.

Exhibiting a caring spirit in this informal, follow-up conversation, a leader will draw out this church member's best reflections.

As a result, misunderstandings will be reduced and a greater awareness of motivations will become apparent.

This personal touch, oddly omitted, offers major dividends!

Another major mistake made was not asking for a copy of these spiritual gift questionnaires returned to church leadership. The need to do this is obvious.

How can leaders partner with you, and equip you, if they don’t have this information?

When it comes to finding the right people to serve in church-related ministries, how is the church helped if leadership doesn’t have this information?

The very fact that the church didn’t request this information reveals the low vision their leaders have for helping people to effectively serve the Lord.

In the past, church leaders thought they were done once all the church jobs were filled. That’s the wrong focus.

The right focus is to help every church member find their place in a ministry for which they are gifted and motivated. When churches do that, emerging ministries will move outside church walls. And isn't that good?

A Proposal to Consider
A.B. Simpson said it well, “All true workers must be prepared.” Doing this, I submit, necessitates spiritual gifts workshops.

What does that involve?

I would propose something like this. A church could offer three spiritual gifts workshops a quarter, let’s say on Sunday nights. Entrance into one of these workshops would be based on results from the previously administered questionnaire.

Heads up on this: Gifted people do want this training! You won't have to persuade them to attend.

A church member’s response to these workshops, even while attending, is also part of the search, and not the consummation of the search.

If a church member resonates with the training, fine, we’ve got a green light.

If that's not the case, leadership should partner with this person by offering positive pastoral conversations to help this person explore other spiritual gift possibilities.

In addition to these spiritual gifts workshops, I would also offer one other workshop each quarter that isn’t gift-related but offers a different type of training. There are many topics that could be pursued, such as: how to meet the Lord in the Word, how to pray, how to put spiritual armor on, how to witness, how to parent, etc.

There can even be a training about spiritual gifts in general, addressing such topics as:

● what a particular spiritual gift is
● how the gift is received
● how that the gift may be discovered
● how the Holy Spirit energizes a gift
● how the Lord guides us to decide what ministry to invest our spiritual gifting
● how gifting perspectives differ and therefore potentially set up communication conflicts (which, with this information, can be avoided).

A study of God’s rewards, meant to incentivize our service, is another possibility for this more generalized training opportunity.

By offering this type of training, the family routine is stabilized for attendance on Sunday night. What we don’t want are workshops conflicting with schedules for fellowship groups.

Finding the best leader for spiritual gift workshops is a challenge.

If the spiritual gift is administration, for example, then a church should look within their own membership for the person who matches this assignment well.

If not found in the church, the church would do well to have a city-wide search to find at leader known for this gift. Then, upon a satisfactory exploratory conversation, pay a stipend for this once-a-week quarterly leadership.

In some cases, there are videos from national leaders that can be used for instructional purposes for a spiritual gift.

The suggested agenda would be:

1. Teach practical principles for effective gift employment
2. Provide opportunities to practice strategies taught, and timely critiquing of these attempts
3. Present a somewhat comprehensive ministry listing where the gift being considered could be used. This should include smaller ministries that serve people outside the church.
4. Identify one or more local mentors who will assist people during and after a workshop
5. Provide, prior to the workshop, supportive material for those who will provide this post-workshop mentoring
6. Provide assistance to the church for bridging these newly trained people into ongoing ministry settings
7. Provide follow-up mentoring material for these local mentors who will give ongoing oversight after a spiritual gift workshop
8. Provide periodic gift training during the year for those who have attended a workshop

A spiritual gifts workshop reinforces an appreciation for the marvelous capacities God has given believers. At the same time, a spiritual gift workshop enables excellence in the ministry of spiritual gifts.

Think about a spiritual gift you have. Would you want training for that? No doubt, you would. It is the nature of one possessing a spiritual gift to be highly motivated to develop that gift.

Frustrating this desire, and God’s desire, is a drowsy leadership that never even thought about providing training for each of the spiritual gifts.