Follow up on Spiritual Gifts Q & A

This Sunday we looked at Ephesians 4: 7-13 and talked specifically about the Holy Spirit. My main point, in nutshell, was: The Church Body won't grow because you are unique -- you must use your uniqueness to serve.

Most people spend their lives going back and forth between wanting to set themselves apart and wanting to belong to something greater than themselves. The tension seems never ending. And many organizations, religions, even nations cater to this (see United States and former motto until 1956: E Pluribus Unum - 'out of many, one').

But among organizations and institutions only one is able to sustain both a radical sense of togetherness and a freedom of individuality -- the church. God gives these gifts to each believer that are divinely-powered so that he/she can make a unique contribution in serving the body to which you belong. The set of spiritual gifts set us apart and make our contribution unique; we all benefit and increase unity because we serve and are served by these gifts. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ!

Now I wanted to post a couple of resources for learning more about spiritual gifts, since ours was a quick overview followed by 7 minutes of Q & A:

#1 - A very rich series of online articles under the heading: Who's Afraid of the Holy Spirit? Included among the authors are J.I. Packer and one of my favorite seminary professors, Richard Averbeck.

#2 - On spiritual gifts specifically, I would like to start something myself as its an area in which I've had a good deal of experience and done a good deal of training. But I've neither the time or energy, so for now I refer you to this resource from Pastor Mark Roberts (Boerne, Texas). He did a very helpful blog series on Spiritual Gifts in the Body of Christ: Part I (Contains 5 articles) & Part II (Contains 9 articles).

I don't fully agree with his definition of Spiritual gifts, but pretty close & his treatment of the use of the gifts is excellent.

#3 - Please pray for Sunrise Community Church. One, that our new, biblically-sound leadership structure would get in place by the end of April. With the foundation of a team of elders, we can then move toward the creation of new ministries (where you can use their gifts) and a membership class of sorts (where you can identify, pray about, & learn how to begin using gifts). So, two, pray for God's timing and patience as we get down the 'fundamentals' of doing church before rushing ahead to the other, more 'exciting' stuff.