Globally gifted.
I'm not globally gifted. Wish I was.
I have big gaps in ongoing people management and administration.
I'm pretty good with short term projects. Pretty good with things I can do all by myself. Good in many up-front roles. Good at coming up with ideas. Very bad at asking people to do stuff. Atrocious at bill paying, form filling-out etc.
Churches want ministers who are globally gifted. Most will be disappointed.
I think that if churches want ministers who are globally gifted, we are forgetting one of the primary ways that we are described in the Bible - as a body. No-one is globally gifted; that's why we have to work together.
ReplyDeleteChurches want ministers who are globally gifted. Most will be disappointed.
ReplyDeleteThe church that gets me certainly will. They might have the power and phone cut off too.
And after all, we are the gifts to the church.
ReplyDeleteYou'd appreciate that old joke the perfect pastor: 26 years old but has been preaching for 30 years...preaches exactly 20 mins, condemns sins but hurts no-one's feelings, works from 7am to 10pm...makes $100/week, wears good clothes, has a big library, drives a new car and gives $50 / wk to the church...spends all his time witnessing to the lost but makes 30 calls a day to church members and is never out of the church office.
I just wrote a bunch of stuff saying I don't like the term 'globally gifted'. I've decided that the reason I wrote that is wrong (regardless of whether the term is helpful or not).
ReplyDeleteI think the reason I disagreed at first was because it implies that the person is capable in all areas, and thus in a sense is independant of the body in some way. This isn't necessarily implied by the term at all, though. Unfortunately, this can at times be people's perception of 'globally gifted' people, I think.
Either way, as Brucey says, "God has given you the exact gifts for the tasks that he has prepared for you. No more, no less."
Good thing for me...