Just Start Serving

Some books teach to discover your spiritual gifts and then start serving. I say start serving to discover your spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts assessments and tools have their place, but not the place you probably think. I believe the spiritual gift assessment tools are helpful on the back end more than the front end. Let me explain. I believe you start serving and THEN, only after you are already serving, you should take a spiritual gifts assessment to help you further understand how God made you and how that should influence where you belong serving in the church family.

Too often, people are needed NOW to help and serve, but they can’t because their waiting six months for the results of their assessment to come back. Or people start using the excuse “I don’t what gifts I have” as an excuse to never start serving.

Here’s where you should begin. FIND WHERE YOU ARE NEEDED! If you don’t know where you are needed, just ask your pastor. He or she will help you become aware of the available areas of service. Don’t assume that because you aren’t aware of any areas of service that they don’t exist. Go ahead and ask. I assure you that they do! Then, once you are serving where you are needed you can begin thinking about your sweet spot. You could think of your sweet spot as that role you ideally would like to play and your secondary role could be thought of as that spot that just needs filling and your willing to do because you are a part of the family. In a real family, no one wants to take out the trash or do the laundry - but these are still important things that need to get done.