KNIFE JUGGLING OR GRANDSTAND MINISTRY?
During the depression this field was a sheep ranch owned by a man named Yates. Mr. Yates wasn’t able to make enough on his ranching operation to pay the principal and interest on the mortgage, so he was in danger of losing his ranch. With little money for clothes or food, his family (like many others) had to live on government subsidy.
Day after day, as he grazed his sheep over those rolling West Texas hills, he was no doubt greatly troubled about how he would pay his bills. Then a seismographic crew from an oil company came into the area and told him there might be oil on his land. They asked permission to drill a wildcat well, and he signed a lease contract.
At 1,115 feet they struck a huge oil reserve. The first well came in at 80,000 barrels a day. Many subsequent wells were more than twice as large. In fact, 30 years after the discovery, a government test of one of the wells showed it still had the potential flow of 125,000 barrels of oil a day.
And Mr. Yates owned it all. The day he purchased the land he had received the oil and mineral rights. Yet, he’d been living on relief. A multimillionaire living in poverty.
WE HAVE BEEN CALLED….from the womb as a leaders! We cannot minimize the meaning of that! You are not where God has placed you to steer a boat; but, God has called you to chart the course. There is a big difference! With your call to kingdom leadership, God is depending on you to tap into the resources buried in the land he has prearranged for you. You can’t just live on relief, trying to build a spiritually wealthy church with the likes of grass, water, and sheep, when – in the depth of the land there is an incredible potential of life-changing substance! We must start doing more than leading sheep, we must start drilling!!
IT TAKES MORE THAN BODIES
Mega-churches. I have read from “mega-pastors” that mega-churches aren’t everything they are cracked up to be – yet everyone wants one. We live in a generation where bigger is better, reach the masses, fill the stadiums, and have more than one church campus. I am not against doing kingdom work with the masses, but if all we have is a assembly of bodies, we are going to have flocks of flesh! Numbers may prove our ability to get the crowds to draw near, but it is about the only thing it proves about our leadership. We need more than a group of bodies. Paul says in I Cor. 7:7, "Each one has his own spiritual gift." Also, I Peter 4:10, "As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another." Our first responsibility as land owners is to make sure land ownership is definite, but our second greatest responsibility is to recognize, develop, and employ the spiritual gift(s) that the work of Salvation implants into the people God has given us. God gave you the land, but don’t forget that “there’s gold in them there hills!” The true difference is made when we are able to capture the gifts in those bodies.
As Kingdom Leaders we must understand that…
- God determined the place and time of each person’s existence. People are given by God to you for the ministry God has given you. Look at what Paul says to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:11 “Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry.” Sounds like Paul was making some decisions “on purpose” to build his team.
- You need EVERY person’s gift to fulfill the work God has called you to do. I Cor. 7:7, "Each one has his own spiritual gift.” If each person has a/some spiritual gift(s), and God has given them to you, then every person’s gift must be harvested. NO GIFT LEFT BEHIND. You can’t be prejudiced or have likes and dislikes or pre-determined ideas about who can be used and why or why not. If God saved them, God intends to use them in YOUR ministry for NOW.
- You must become an expert at recognizing what spiritual gifts are and what proclivity to certain gifts are in what people. Familiarize yourself thoroughly with the 21 different gifts listed in Eph. 4:11, Rom. 12:3-7, and 1 Cor. 12:1-12, 28. They are generally assigned to one of three categories, as listed below:
• Motivational (practical) gifts: Service, Exhortation, Giving, Leadership,
Mercy, Helps and Administration.
• Charismatic (spiritual) gifts: Wisdom, Knowledge, Discernment, Prophecy,
Tongues, Interpretation, Faith, Healing and Miracles.
- Salvation is not enough. God wants YOU as the leader to take responsibility for unveiling the gift, guidance in developing the gift, and leading an open way for the gifts to be used.
- You cannot be stuck on the obvious outward gifts; some gifts are not overtly noticeable. You can’t build a healthy church on the obvious gifts alone.
- If we are spending more of our time developing our technology, encouraging trendy worship experiences, new methods, etc. than we are developing the spiritual gifts of the people of God, we are failing as leaders. What we begin in the flesh will have to be maintained by the arm of the flesh, what is initiated by the Spirit, the Spirit will maintain.
RECOGNIZING THE PROCLIVITY
To elaborate a little more on our calling as a leader to develop the spiritual gifts in people….Even if you feel you know, it is not your position to tell people where they are gifted; however, it is your responsibility to lead and guide them into a relationship with Christ that will set them on the course to the discovery of their gifts.
A man is pulled over by a police officer for a broken headlight. The cop looks in the car and sees a collection of knives on the backseat. "Sir," he says. "Why do you have all those knives?"
"They’re for my juggling act," the man replies.
"Prove it," says the cop.
The man gets out of the car and begins juggling the knives just as two men drive by.
"Man," says one guy. "I’m glad I quit drinking. These new sobriety tests are hard."
Not everyone can juggle knives! Some people are more prone to certain spiritual gifts. If you want to help people find their spiritual gift, take a look in their “back seat”. What is currently there? God generally uses what they already have, baptizes it with His Spirit, and uses it for his kingdom. Moses was a shepherd, and when God went to use him he asked him, "What is in thy hand?" The answer - a common rod. When given to God, the rod becomes a powerful tool.
Often a person’s spiritual GIFTS are what comes easy to them that is not so easy for others?
Giving guidance is just as much about expressing what a person is not. Due to the fact that there are gifts that are outwardly worked and recognized more often, many are prone to covet them. I know men who, because preaching, prophesying, and the gift of tongues and interpretation are seen as the ‘best’ gifts, try to walk in these gifts and do so in utter failure. Do not be backward about being lovingly honest to the ones you lead about what you see – honest feedback is a leader’s responsibility. People who insist on working in gifts to which they have not been called will bring utter frustration, confusion, and become more of a liability to ministry than anything else.
As a leader, we must not allow ourselves to be single focussed about gifts – only developing and nurturing those with the obvious and outward gifts that are expressed ‘congregationally’, such as preaching and teaching. You must bring balance by consistently teaching ‘every person in HIS own gift’. You will do the kingdom, the church, and your own ministry a great injustice if all gifts are not pursued and cultivated. Bring the ministry God has given you to its FULLEST POTENTIAL, not just its OBVIOUS POTENTIAL. Remember, the iceberg above the water is obvious, but it is small compared to what is below the surface. If we only nurture the obvious gifts and fill in the gaps with talent and other attributes, we endanger the church body of being led by the flesh, not by the Spirit. The Spirit chooses to operate through gifts given to EVERY person. If the gifts are not in operation, quite frankly, the spirit is not in operation. We cannot dismiss this as the structure that God has established.
WE MUST NOT CREATE A GRANDSTAND CHURCH – where people fulfill Acts 2:38 and if they are not called to the function of one of the gifts necessary for the church platform, then they stay out of the playing field and find a seat in the grandstand. Listen, the only ones who are supposed to be onlookers are those who are not yet filled with the Holy Ghost! As leaders, we have to take active steps to getting folks out of the grandstand and into the ‘playing field’!
KINGDOM MINDED LEADERS MUST
GRASP AND TEACH THE FOLLOWING
You cannot be spiritually connected and committed if you are not using the gifts God put within you. If there is a lack somewhere in the church, in ministries, worship, community/social work, children’s ministries, etc. – then there is someone not functioning in their spiritual gift. God creates no dismembered bodies. What are you NOT doing?
There is no substitute for YOU in the kingdom work. You are a necessary member of the body of Christ, locally and worldwide.
Don’t covet the best gifts. Don’t seek gifts you don’t have – function fully in the gift you do have.
The true church doesn’t wait for God to show up, they understand that he chose spiritual gifts through which to make his presence known. If he shows up here, we rarely need a pillar of fire!
If you will function in your spiritual gift, you will not constantly be asked to do things that are not your spiritual gift. Operating in the gift God has given removes frustration from the body of Christ.
Abundant life is truly found in functioning in the gift God has given you.
The church begins with individuals and the work of the church begins with individuals.
You cannot have active ministry without active gifts. The Spirit chooses to minister through people who have gifts he has given. If people are not ministering, the Spirit IS NOT ministering.
If you are not serving in the kingdom, you are not surrendered to the King. God’s spirit enables us for a life of service after we surrender ourselves to him. You cannot surrender yourself just to receive salvation and then pick your ‘self’ back up after salvation and be pleasing to God.
The more one uses his spiritual gift, the more he grows in Christ. You cannot obtain this growth via any other method- it only comes by exercising the spiritual gift God has placed in you.
Church attendance is no substitute for individual spiritual commitment. Tabulating the work of the Spirit is much more important than counting bodies on an attendance roster.
The flesh is still a yoke to the born again believer. The greatest deliverance God gave us was from ourselves – so we should not rely on ourselves to do the work of God in this earth.
Operating in the spiritual gift God has given you will bring fulfillment, remove envy of other’s gifts and abilities from your life, stop you from thinking everyone should have your gifts, and launch you into being a spiritual giant. The greatest remedy for spiritual dissatisfaction is operating in your spiritual gift.
The more you know the gift in you, the more you know God.
There is more to walking than the phraseology of it – to walk in the Spirit is to actively function in your gifts.
You were not saved by works, but you were saved to do works – if you find yourself not working in the kingdom, you are not functioning in your gift.
If we are not working in our spiritual gifts, we have transformation of salvation, but we will not transformation of the church as a whole.
Take your gifts seriously - just as seriously as your pastor takes his.
You must develop your gifts FULLY by studying the Word, reading about subjects surrounding your gifts, prayer, and fasting.
You must consider the presence of your gift as the only invitation you need to exercise it. Deploy your gifts boldly – do not wait on human invitation.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The only guarantee we have of the power of God meeting with us is the yielding of each individual to the operation of the gifts of the Spirit. This is God's method of operations.Currently we focus so much on preaching or music as the conduits through which God does the work in each service to our detriment. We limit the operation of the Spirit among us to those gifts alone. What if we were all connected? Can you imagine the diversity and fullness of the work of the Holy Ghost we would experience? Talk about new dimensions!
TRY IT…
Take a church directory and a pen. Go down the list and write down the spiritual gifts of the people next to their names. Now write down how they are developing that gift and deploying that gift in active ministry in the local church? Is it happening….? What does the current percentage of active members say about your leadership at this point?
I tried it. It seems that we are only tapping into about 25% of the gifts in our local congregation! Unbelievable! I have no idea whatsoever what some of the member’s gifts are! Imagine what would happen if we had 300% more of the work of the Spirit and the power of God in operation in our church throughout the week…
Are you ready to take them to a new dimension??? We better start unwrapping the gifts God has given us!
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About Me-
- Jayson Pagan
- Salina, Kansas, United States
- Being raised in a home void of leadership, leading people does not come natural for me. After creating much havoc and chaos, it is my endeavor to share with others the lessons that I have learned along the way. I am a bilingual minister with the UPCI and have spent time pastoring, evangelizing, and have functioned for the last 8 years as the Administrator of a wonderful and growing Church in Southern Illinois. I have also been at the helm of successfully growing a small construction company to become a multi-million dollar industry. Space does not permit all the lessons learned!