I’ve never liked those spiritual gift inventories. They just seem far too unspiritual, unbiblical, and unhelpful to me. One need not be a Christian to take one of those tests and have a score that would indicate a particular gift in his or her life, even if one is not yet filled with God’s Spirit through his saving grace.
Instead of spiritual gift inventories, the church should be affirming spiritual gifts in one another through simple encouragement. Ponder the following paragraph from Ed Welch:
“One of the bad fruits of an ‘I’ church is that we don’t tell people when they bless us. If someone has taught Sunday school and helped us understand a passage of Scripture, then we should tell the person and encourage his or her gift. If worship leaders left us rejoicing that we have been with God’s people in his presence, then thank them for the specific ways they blessed you and the church. No one should have to ask what their gifts are; we should tell people their gifts as they minister to us.” (Edward T. Welch, When People are Big and God is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1997), 205.)
Welch is right on the money. The way that one identifies his or her spiritual gift is not by taking a personality type test. Instead, the way to know what your gift is would be for you to serve in the local church and allow others in the church to let you know, to affirm for you, how it is that God uses you.
Think it through. A man does not find out his gift is preaching by the result of a test. Instead, he opens the word for people, and the body of Christ tells him that, when he speaks from the word, they understand it better, they are challenged, and they learn and grow. A person with a gift for leading worship is not going to find this out in a lab. No, a gifted worship leader will find this out through experience and through the clear affirmation of other believers.
If this is true, if we learn our gifts through the affirmation of the body, then it would also be true that you, as a believer, should be communicating your affirmations to others in the church. If a Bible teacher makes the word clear to you, let him know. If a worship leader helps you to approach the throne of God, let him know. If a friend praying for you truly encourages you or comforts you, let her know. If a couple has shown you genuine hospitality, let them know that you sense what God is doing through them. This is not for the purpose of patting somebody on the back, but to rightly affirm the way that God is using people in his church.
Whose gifts do you see? Out of love, tell them. Help them to know how God is using them.
Pastor Travis Peterson 