Gifts...

Hello, friends!

The last night of AAMSC19, our speaker asked us to re-imagine our spiritual gifts. To say that session was interesting would not quite do it the proper justice.

I wouldn't say that the idea of spiritual gifts is foreign to me but it's definitely an area where I've grown a lot in my understanding and in my theology. Growing up in a Chinese Baptist church, we talked about spiritual gifts but didn't get into the more "ghosty" gifts like speaking in tongues and healing. I don't know if that was a theological decision or a a decision based on the fact that we were all high schoolers. Either way, I knew of spiritual gifts but didn't really think about them much.

When I got to college, I saw more spiritual gifts in action. I saw friends of mine speak in tongues. I've had other friends pray healing over folk and be healed as well. I saw staff speak words of prophecy. Like I said before, I didn't think much about spiritual gifts so there wasn't any "unlearning" that needed to happen. I just had more exposure to gifts and so I accepted that they were present.

Our speaker spoke a bit on how important gifts are to our ministry, then she had us do listening prayer with two prompts. The first prompt was to ask God if there were any spiritual gifts that had been lying dormant that He wanted us to rekindle. The second prompt was to ask God if there were any new spiritual gifts that he wanted to give us.

For the first prompt, what came up for me was that I needed to rekindle the gift of preaching. I've known for a while that I've had the gift of preaching but it's a gift that I haven't used as much in the past few years. When I was first starting out on staff, I was preaching every week at ACF Large Group. But, as my responsibilities grew and I took on more roles, eventually leaving ACF, those opportunities stopped. I also haven't preached at my home church in Orange County in a bit, although I was able to guest preach once or twice down in Jeff City. Still, it was interested to hear that from Jesus.

Even MORE interesting was what I heard when I listened for new gifts. The word that came up in big bold letters was the word FAITH. My first reaction was uncertainty as to whether or not the gift of faith is actually a gift. So, I had to look it up. It turns out it is. My second reaction was uncertainty as to what the gift of faith actually is. So, I tried looking that up to. That search was less than fruitful and a little bit confusing. =0).

After talking with our Regional Spiritual Formation guru, I think I have a working definition of the gift of faith that makes sense to me. To paraphrase, it's a supreme confidence that Jesus is going to do what Jesus is going to do so it's OK to take risks. I'm still not entirely sure of how that's different from regular faith or just following Jesus well, but maybe that's evidence that I have that gift. Looking back on my life, I think that makes a certain amount of sense to me.

Right now, the plan is for me to figure out how to incorporate those gifts more into my work. I'm not totally sure what the game plan will be but I'm excited to see how God uses me with how He's created me.

Have an excellent day!

~Adam

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