The Importance of Using Our Spiritual Gifts

A friend of mine had, for years, been teaching a course on spiritual gifts, when he made a startling discovery: helping people discern their gifts led them, almost without fail, to leave that church.  It wasn't a small church; I believe the Sunday morning attendance was around 800 or so, but there were very few opportunities for people to serve, apart from doing nursery duty.  I had once spoken to the senior pastor about possibly teaching Sunday School, and he had informed me that they had enough teachers and would not consider letting anyone teach adults who could not be assured of a weekly class attendance of 75-100.  My friend stopped teaching the course, then, a few months later, he and his wife left the church, even though they were founding members.  What was the point, anyway, in helping people discern their gifts if there was no way for them to exercise those gifts in the church?   

Why does this matter?  Do people somehow have a right to use their gifts in the Church?  Well, it seems more accurate to say that God calls us to exercise the gifts He gives, and that the Church, when it recognizes the presence of those gifts, has an obligation to make use of them for the good of the body.  It's not at all about self-fulfillment.  Those who have been baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are given gifts which they are called to exercise, and the Church is called to receive and nurture these gifts.

Although the spiritual gifts we have received are for the good of the Church and the glory of God, rather than for our own sense of fulfillment, not using them tends to have a negative effect on our spiritual lives. There's a striking example of this in the life of John Wesley. Most things written about him stress his Aldersgate experience (when his heart was “strangely warmed”) as the turning point in his life, and yet eight months after this experience he was still struggling, saying “My friends affirm that I am mad because I said I was not a Christian a year ago. I affirm I am not a Christian now” (quoted by Arnold Dallimore, George Whitefield, vol. 1, p. 196).

There’s no doubt that Wesley was unsettled by an inordinately subjective approach to conversion, but Dallimore makes this observation: “he must find some great mission in life, some field of labour large enough to call forth all his mighty powers and utilize all his energies” (p. 198). In addition to the theological weakness of his understanding at this point, Wesley was floundering because he didn’t have a sphere in which to exercise his extraordinary gifts.  The gifts we receive from the Spirit are given for the good of the Church, but not using them tends to harm us spiritually, and using them provides a context for us to grow in Christlikeness.

Since using our spiritual gifts is a necessary part of growing in grace, part of a pastor's calling is to nurture the gifts of those under his care.  Jesus did that repeatedly with His disciples, as when He sent out the Seventy then talked to them afterward about how it went.  Teaching people about spiritual gifts and then refusing to lead them in learning to exercise those gifts is an abdication of pastoral responsibility.