Missional Gifts of the Spirit

I spent Saturday with a group of Christians from Weipa reframing spiritual gifts as resources for mission. We used the morning to rethink “spiritual gifts” as “gifts from the Spirit” suitable for use every day of the week in any situation, in and beyond the gathered expression of the Christian community.

The use of the word “spiritual” rather than “Spirit-given” has, in my opinion, led us to unnecessarily spiritualize the Spirit’s gifts to the church, leading to an expectation of “supernatural spectacle”. We have unnecessarily bought into the individualism of the age by teaching that each person has their unique set of gifts, placing pressure on people to find them and use them. If we believe that the gifts are given to the community, we find there’s a new freedom for many people to be resourced by the Spirit for unrecognized roles in family life, work life, engagement in the community, as well as in the running of a congregation or small group. Here’s a few examples of how that plays out.

Gift of Prophecy

We talked about how often this has been seen as a supernatural capacity to forsee the future, or speak what is on the mind of God for believers, providing general challenge or encouragement. Instead we talked about the Holy Spirit given ability to receive and communicate a message from God in a clear, timely and sensitive way for building up, correcting, motivating or comforting individuals, the Church or wider society. Culturally sensitive means that people have the challenge of how they communicate as much as what they communicate. We talked about the shared prophetic responsibility of Christian communities to engage in their wider context, rather than expecting or waiting for incredibly gifted and often unaccountable individuals.

Gift of Wisdom

In pentecostal circles this is often treated as a supernatural capacity for insight that is used to guide the church or its members in the “Christian” life. We talked about Spirit-given ability to discern God’s perspective on personal, church and community situations, together with the ability to apply that insight to the particular context or need in a way that brings about an effective outcome. One of the workshop participants talked about ways in which he needs the Spirit’s gifts of wisdom to work effectively with his team at work, recognizing core issues and ethical responsibilities.

Gift of Languages

The phrase, “speaking in tongues” comes from the King James English translation of the Bible, translating “many kinds of languages” as “divers kinds of tongues”. We talked about the intent of this gift as communication, finding language that helps people connect and engage with one another. This implies that listening, learning and responding, otherwise known as dialogue, are significant gifts of the Spirit for the community.

In contrast to most spiritual gifts seminars we did not have a tick and flick list. Much to the relief of participants, there was no expectation that people’s gifts would be named at the end of the day. Instead, we identified the ways in which members of the congregation engaged with their community, through their families, their neighbourhoods, and their workplace. Discernment of gifts was left to a case by case exploration of mission.