Leveraging Spiritual Gifts to Build Community
We tend to think about spiritual gifts on an individual level, but it can’t stop there. Groups offer the best environments for discovering how God has graced each one and they’re ideal outlets for believers to exercise their gifts together. The biblical community that grows in groups inspires Christ-followers to be faithful and bold in using what the Lord has deposited in them to advance His Kingdom.
A spiritual gift is a special enablement that God gives to each believer, according to His grace, to build up the Body of Christ (Rom 12:6–8). Spiritual gifts enable us to do things with greater spiritual effectiveness because we’re not operating by our strength alone. The Lord has already called us and empowered us by the Holy Spirit to share them by serving others.
God’s power flows to and through a group in life-changing ways when spiritual gifts are being used in concert together. As a group leader, you want to be sensitive to the supernatural composition of your group so as you think about how to grow and serve together, begin by asking WHO is in your group rather than WHAT you should be doing. You can facilitate the following three conversation to help in this discovery process.
Conversation #1: Introducing and Identifying Spiritual Gifts
(This first conversation can be done in one or two sittings.)
Part A: Introducing Spiritual Gifts
- Introduce spiritual gifts to your group and highlight how every believer has them. Refer to 1 Corinthians 12; Romans 12:1-8; Ephesians 4:7-16; 1 Peter 4:10-11.
- Have everyone complete an assessment and bring their results back to share with the group. For examples see:
Part B: Identifying Spiritual Gifts
- Invite the group to affirm how they see the spiritual gifts evident in each person who shares.
- Draw a circle and segment it according to the number of your church’s values or purposes. Then brainstorm where each of your regular group practices fit under the values represented.
- Talk about how the spiritual gifts represented in the lives of your group members relate to your…
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- Church’s values
- Group’s practices
- Church’s activities
- Group fulfilling your church’s mission
Spiritual gifts help believers discover their unique capacity to serve God and effectively advance His purposes in this world. The more we decipher our gifts the better we discern our calling.
The collective gifts of all the group members create a roadmap revealing how the group can best experience God’s power and be most effective on mission together. They also help group leaders empower each one to share the responsibilities for the group and turn its energy and focus outward, keeping it healthy.
Conversation #2: Building Well-rounded Group Life Together
These questions can be used to help engage the group in a conversation on how to leverage spiritual gifts to build community within the group and strengthen its impact:
- How can each member use their God-given gifts to strengthen and enrich the group (1 Cor 12:7)?
- Which group practices are frequent and active in our group (Bible study, sharing meals, prayer etc.)?
- Which group practices are infrequent or inactive that we need to somehow incorporate in our group life (e.g. sharing the Gospel in word and deed, etc.)?
- What is needed to continue developing the frequent group practices and to elevate the infrequent or dormant ones?
- How can each one invest their spiritual gifts in our larger church family and further what the Lord is already doing?
The goal is to empower each group member to connect their gift-mix to a group practice that will express your church’s values. Consequently, biblical community will grow and your group members will be empowered to live out your church’s mission together. Empowerment is helping believers do what God has created and commissioned them to do. It is unveiling who they are in Christ and helping them to see themselves the way their Heavenly Father sees them: As His very own children.
Conversation #3: Connecting Spiritual Gifts to Group Practices
Think of yourself as a synergist who is administrating gift deployment so that people are built up and God’s purposes are advanced. One way you can empower your group members is to ask each one to champion an area of your group life that’s in keeping with their gift-mix by, which you can approach by…
- Recalling your previous conversation around Q4 above and creating a list with two columns: One for what’s needed to continue developing the frequent group practices and the other for what is needed to develop the infrequent or dormant group practices.
- Brainstorming with your group what an easy (baby) step could look like for one season or semester of your group’s life together.
- Asking group members to pick 1-2 group practices they can picture themselves developing and to give the group a snapshot of what that looks like. Which opportunities tug at their heart the strongest?
- Observing what people naturally gravitate toward doing and asking questions to explore their interest level. Help people see connections between development opportunities and the deployment of their spiritual gifts in your group or your larger church family.
- Inviting group members to take responsibility to develop or strengthen a group practice for a season/semester of your group life or try deploying their spiritual gifts in a ministry of your church.
As someone is faithful to use their God-given spiritual gifts to build up your group and church, they can be entrusted with a greater sense of stewardship for an area of your group life. This will empower them in ministry, lift the load of responsibility you’re carrying, multiply leadership development, and grow biblical community, which is transformational for everyone.
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