Getting to Know You
- What was the most fulfilling job or task you ever had?
- What has been the most rewarding job or task as a church member?
- What is one skill you possess that no one in the group would know about?
- In what way are you serving the church at this time?
Going Deeper
- List the spiritual gifts in I Corinthians 12.
- For what purpose are they given? (v. 7)
- Look at Romans 12 and Ephesians 4. What additional gifts are listed? What gifts are listed in more than one gift?
- Which of the gifts have you observed in our congregation? How have they been expressed?
- What are your observations of the more spectacular gifts: speaking in tongues, healing, miracles? Have you ever witnessed one of these gifts? Have you ever known anyone who expressed these gifts outside the context of a church?
- There are spiritual “gifts”—and there are spiritual “fruits.” See Galatians 5:22,23. What is the difference? The Holy Spirit is the Giver of spiritual gifts. What is the shared knowledge in the group that describes or defines the Holy Spirit?
- What would be the consequences of not living out your spiritual gift?
- What would you consider to be the primary gifts that are expressed in our church culture?
Take it home
- Take a spiritual gifts assessment. Go to umc.org/what-we-believe/spiritualgifts-assessment.
- Consider your spiritual gift(s). How could you “live out” this gift/these gifts within the ministry of the church, the body of Christ?
- Another way to think about spiritual gifts: What is your passion for Christ and the church? What burden do you carry for the church/the kingdom?
- How many hours per week/month would you want to serve if it was in an area of giftedness?
- We don’t always serve out of a gifted area—how else can God use you, based not on your gift, but the needs of the church, the body of Christ?