Personality Types, Spiritual Gifts, and Ministry

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My Vocation of Ministry seminary class homework has included taking various inventories – personality type, spiritual gifts, witnessing style, conflict management style, and more.  For years those of us in discipleship ministries have been using these type of inventories as a starting point for self-discovery, personal growth, and reflection on types of ministry people might be most suited for.  Please explore some of the links below for yourself and for those you spend time with!

Personality types – why we use them, testing website, and the four basics (because it’s easier to grasp than Myers-Briggs or the Enneagram, though I’m a fan of those too!)  personality-types-and-discipleship

Spiritual gifts – Spiritual Gift Assessment Tools

For a book and/or Bible study that covers both of the above, plus your heart passions, life experiences, and natural abilities, try SHAPE by Erik Rees of Saddleback Church.  SHAPE

And for fun, here is one I had not seen before:  Witnessing Style Inventory – though we are all called to share the gospel, our preferred manner to do so varies. Witnessing Style Inventory

Do you have a particular tool you love to use?  Tell us about it and send a link!

Graphing Your Spiritual Journey

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What would your spiritual journey through life look like as a line graph?  Up, down, steadily rising, some bumpy spots?  When did your spiritual life begin?  Where are you today?  Try this simple exercise of drawing out your spiritual journey as a line graph on a piece of paper.  (Imagine a stock market graph, from the day your were born until today…)StockmarketLine

If your take your time and reflect on your journey it can be a powerful tool for self-discovery, and a great preparation for sharing your story with someone else.  Be sure to label important markers on your journey such as:  salvation, sin issues or difficult seasons of trials, high points, changes of direction in career or ministry, getting married or divorced, having kids, etc.

Here’s a full set of instructions if you’d like to incorporate this exercise into your discipleship ministries.  Graph Your Spiritual Journey Exercise

Ladies at The River, you know we will be doing this exercise this fall! : )

A Class for Those Considering Ministry

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If you’re paying to go to seminary, you presumably have some sense of being “called into the ministry” as a full-time vocation.  To help students intentionally reflect on what that might mean, Asbury Seminary requires all students to take a Vocation of Ministry class their first year. This is my summer 2018 project.

The class is designed to help us:
– Articulate our spiritual journey and calling to ministry,
– Consider our gifts, passions, and experiences as they relate to ministry,
– Embrace spiritual growth and character development,
– Find life balance so that ministry is sustainable,
– Recognize healthy (and unhealthy) patterns of relationships in ministry (including sexual ethics), and
– Demonstrate sensitivity to cultural, ethnic, and gender issues with regard to ministry.

That’s a lot of ground to cover in one class!  We have done some interesting projects that I will recount for you in brief posts as the summer continues.  Our reading list for the class is:BookList

-Guinness, Os. The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life. 2000.
-Smith, Gordon. Courage and Calling: Embracing Your God-Given Potential. 1999.
-McNeal, Reggie. A Work of Heart: Understanding How God Shapes Spiritual Leaders. 2011.
-Barton, Ruth H. Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation. 2006.
-Ethridge, Shannon and Stephen Arterburn. Every Woman’s Battle: Discovering God’s Plan For Sexual and Emotional Fulfillment. 2003.  (Guys are reading the men’s version.)
-Lupton, Robert. Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help, And How to Reverse it. 2011.
-Roberts, Benjamin T. Ordaining Women. 1891, reprinted 2016.
 

A Semester in the Gospel of Mark

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Seminary classes appear to either be (a) content-based in which one must master a body of knowledge (theology, church history, etc.), or (b) skills-based in which one must master a skill to an academically acceptable level (preaching, interpreting text, Greek, Hebrew, etc.)  This spring I spent a semester learning Inductive Bible Study (IBS) skills and practicing on the English text of the Gospel of Mark. It was a lot of work, but rewarding!

If you think about it, no one recorded every waking moment Jesus spent on earth.  Even today we do not record every moment of every day, even if reality t.v. shows and Snapchat stories promise you otherwise… everything is edited! So we have four different gospel accounts of Jesus’ life, each by a different author, each telling the parts of Jesus’ life and ministry that they wanted to communicate to their audience. The content of each narrative is absolutely true, simply edited by a different author.

IBS asks the question, “Why did Mark chose to tell this story, to this audience, at this point in his narrative?” IBS presumes that Mark, with the help of the Holy Spirit, arranged the stories of Jesus in a particular fashion to communicate particular truths to his audience.  IBS is a bit like bringing AP English Literature skills to the gospel narrative and asking questions about structure, recurring themes, framing, foreshadowing, climax, repeated cycles, and more.  Once we understand the structure of a passage, and its context, then we become better interpreters of the text.  Single verses, yanked out of context and

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applied to a situation, become taboo… After all, no one opens a letter from an old friend, reads only the 5th paragraph, and then puts the letter away for another time!

This is the companion commentary we used which I recommend for anyone teaching on Mark by Mark Strauss:

And just to give you an idea, here are some examples of the introductory paragraph of IBS papers I wrote every week all spring:

A Few Short Books

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January is my month off from school so I picked up some highly recommended books to fill my evenings and travel hours…

A Week in the Life of Corinth by Ben Witherington.  Witherington is a world-class professor of the New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary and has written many academic books and commentaries.  This is a work of historical fiction for a general audience, an easy read (2-3 hours), and explores many facets of daily life in a town where the gospel took root under Paul’s teaching.  Highly recommended.

Women of the Word: How to Study the Bible With Both Our Hearts and Our Minds by Jen Wilkin.  Wilkin is a young, popular, female voice in support of inductive Bible study.  Her teaching is well-grounded, and the book on how we should approach studying the Bible is well-written.  There’s even a chapter for teachers on common pitfalls to avoid.

The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life by Os Guinness.  This book stands as a classic, reflective piece on the finding ones purpose in life.  Full of historical figures and wisdom, it could be read as a devotional book by anyone pondering the call of God in their lives.  It is required reading for all Asbury seminary students.

Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue.  Great novel by a young African author!  It traces the life stories of Cameroonian immigrants and a wealthy Lehmann Brothers executive in New York City as the market crashes in 2009.  Themes of immigration, poverty, wealth, happiness, relationships, and ethics are prominent.

Enjoy!

The Surprises of 2017

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I had no idea.  I’ve been thinking about how life with God is such an adventure.  Last January 1st I spent time reflecting on the previous year, and in prayer.  God gave me Hebrews 11:8 as a theme verse for the year.  Then on January 2nd I read this in My Utmost for His highest:

Heb118 I didn’t know what was next.  I wasn’t expecting anything unusual really.  Then in March I spent a weekend with Sandy Richter, and two weeks later I knelt on the grave of Paul in Rome and the words that came out of my mouth were, “Lord, help me be faithful to preach the Word, in season and out of season.”  (Is the Word ever out-of-season?!)  In April I applied to seminary, in May I was accepted at Asbury, in June I stood in the pulpit on a Sunday morning as a guest speaker for the first time, and in September I started classes.  A year ago seminary was not on my To Do List, and here I am one semester into the game.

I still don’t know what’s next, other than the Inductive Study of Mark class I registered for this spring.  I really am enjoying being in seminary, but I don’t have an end game… In fact, not knowing “why” makes school a continual faith exercise… I am here because I am obedient, not because I have a plan.  As long as I check-in with The Master Planner on a regular basis, He will certainly keep me headed in the right direction.

My verse for 2018 is Isaiah 43:19 “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?  I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”  I wonder what the new year holds… I wonder if I am already standing ankle deep in the rising river waters?  Last January I didn’t give my theme verse much thought, this year I am paying attention!

Tell your story – How has God been busy in your life this last year?