If you’ve been reading this blog for long, you know how passionate I am about helping students find their spiritual gifts and natural strengths. You probably also know how passionate I am about personalizing your leadership team to such an extent that each of your students are allowed to grow in their own gifts and strengths.
I was reminded the other day about a man I met at the KALEO Conference in 2009. His name is Kerry Jackson, and he is an artist. He did visual worship on stage, and it was stunning. He talked briefly about his Christian journey and how he never realized that his artistic skills could be used to share the gospel until a mission agency showed him how his artistic skills and his influence in the artistic community could be used to plant a church among that very unique community.
Think about that statement for a minute. God gifted Mr. Jackson quite uniquely, and He did it for a purpose. Many people know their strengths, their gifts, and their passions, but don’t have the first inkling about how it can be used for God’s kingdom.
Helping our students understand how God made them and then helping them apply it to their lives and calling may be the most important thing we can help our leadership students realize. Our western world is becoming more and more compartmentalized; each compartment needs a gospel representation. By showing our students how to live out their unique calling, we can expect to see God’s light in even the darkest, most forgotten corners of our culture, the very place God would have us to share His love and grace.
Training Tomorrow’s Leaders Today,
Matt
Showing posts with label strengths. Show all posts
Showing posts with label strengths. Show all posts
Monday, May 17, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Learning Your Strengths
I’ve blogged here about Strengthsfinder 2.0. I love that book, and I love what it does for people, especially leaders. Well, I’ve just finished its sister book, Strengths Based Leadership, which I also loved. I will do a review of that at another time. What I really want to talk about is this: Gallup released some data in Strengths Based Leadership that I think we can all pay attention to. It’s not strictly related to Christian Leadership, but I think that the stats that I’m about to quote say it all.
Gallup reports that people experience a significant gain in self-confidence after taking a Strengthsfinder test and learning more about their strengths. I don’t think this should come as a surprise. Knowing what you’re good at and being freed up to do it are confidence boosting bits of information. But there’s more:
In 2008, University of Florida released a 25 year study about confidence and work. Here’s a few of the highlights.
People between the ages of 14 and 22 who had more self confidence were making about 3,500 dollars more than their peers in 1979.
These same people saw dramatic increases in their income each passing year.
Those people with higher self-confidence had fewer health problems in 2004 than in 1979 25 years later.
Gallup Polling that has been released suggests that having the opportunity to learn about your strengths has the same effect as the gain in self-confidence. People 15-23 who learned about their strengths were reporting “significantly higher” job satisfaction levels 25 years later.
So what does this mean for us? I don’t know. To my knowledge, there hasn’t been any longitudinal studies on Christian leaders and how Strengths Test and the resulting self-Confidence affects them. I have my guesses though.
I cannot imagine that it would be anything short of revolutionary in the life of a Christian young person to know what strengths God built into them. We are always testing for spiritual gifts, which is very important, so why don’t we test to know how God put us together in other ways?
Imagine the possibilities if we had a generation of Christian leaders who knew both their Spiritual Gifts and their God-given Strengths. What would they be capable of? What difference would it make in their personal lives? How much less burn-out would we have?
I can’t answer these questions (right now), but I am convinced, now more than ever, of the need to test and teach students about their strengths. In fact, I don’t know why every student in the world shouldn’t be taking a Strengths evaluation. I think it’s that important.
Question: What has your experience with Strengths testing been? How has it affected young people you know?
Training Tomorrow’s Leaders Today,
Matt
Gallup reports that people experience a significant gain in self-confidence after taking a Strengthsfinder test and learning more about their strengths. I don’t think this should come as a surprise. Knowing what you’re good at and being freed up to do it are confidence boosting bits of information. But there’s more:
In 2008, University of Florida released a 25 year study about confidence and work. Here’s a few of the highlights.
People between the ages of 14 and 22 who had more self confidence were making about 3,500 dollars more than their peers in 1979.
These same people saw dramatic increases in their income each passing year.
Those people with higher self-confidence had fewer health problems in 2004 than in 1979 25 years later.
Gallup Polling that has been released suggests that having the opportunity to learn about your strengths has the same effect as the gain in self-confidence. People 15-23 who learned about their strengths were reporting “significantly higher” job satisfaction levels 25 years later.
So what does this mean for us? I don’t know. To my knowledge, there hasn’t been any longitudinal studies on Christian leaders and how Strengths Test and the resulting self-Confidence affects them. I have my guesses though.
I cannot imagine that it would be anything short of revolutionary in the life of a Christian young person to know what strengths God built into them. We are always testing for spiritual gifts, which is very important, so why don’t we test to know how God put us together in other ways?
Imagine the possibilities if we had a generation of Christian leaders who knew both their Spiritual Gifts and their God-given Strengths. What would they be capable of? What difference would it make in their personal lives? How much less burn-out would we have?
I can’t answer these questions (right now), but I am convinced, now more than ever, of the need to test and teach students about their strengths. In fact, I don’t know why every student in the world shouldn’t be taking a Strengths evaluation. I think it’s that important.
Question: What has your experience with Strengths testing been? How has it affected young people you know?
Training Tomorrow’s Leaders Today,
Matt
Monday, February 15, 2010
Spiritual Gifts and Natural Strengths
The more I talk about books like “Strengthsfinder 2.0” the more I am asked, “how do strengths and spiritual gifts coincide?” The question has come up enough that I think I should address this.
These conversations come about because of my insistence that as we move forward with Next In Line, every student that can should take a battery of “tests” that will help them know themselves better. They will also help their teacher know more about them and help them set up a more personalized leadership development program (see the article “Explore” in the Next In Line Starter Kit).
I am finding that many leaders in the church are leery of secular tests that help pinpoint your strengths, as these are not your spiritual gifts. While it is true that we cannot confuse God-given talents with God-given spiritual gifts, I don’t see why we can’t be aware of both.
Some people started asking me which was more important, the Strengths Test, or the Spiritual Gifts test. I couldn’t exactly answer that question, because both are important. Here’s how I broke this down to them, and I hope this is helpful to you as well:
Spiritual Gifts are those supernaturally imparted gifts that God gives to us upon conversion that allow us to perform a certain ministry within the church, for the edification of the body (see Ephesians 4 or Romans 12 for a partial list of the gifts and their purpose). Notice a couple of things about Spiritual Gifts:
1. They are given by God
2. They are supernatural
3. They are for ministry
4. Given at conversion
Strengths (or talents) are also God-given. They are things that God wove into our personality and genetics. They are used for more than just ministry, but cannot be separated from it, as we are created for God. They aren’t exactly listed in the bible, but you know what I’m saying: some of us are better at math than others, and some can publicly speak better than others. Others of us have been given incredible wisdom, or inherently understand mechanical things. Notice a couple of things about Strengths:
1. They are given by God
2. They are not supernatural
3. They are for ministry (and other things)
4. Woven into our fabric as God’s creation
The big difference between the two is when they are given and their nature. Otherwise, they are very similar. Ultimately, they also serve the same purpose: the Missio Dei.
The reason that I insist on students finding out their strengths and their Spiritual Gift(s) is that God often uses both in their call to ministry. I love that God would equip us naturally to do certain things well and then complement that with a Spiritual Gift that brings all the glory from that activity to Him.
Our students are more than their spiritual gifts. They are (much) more than their talents and strengths. They are “fearfully and wonderfully made” for amazing purpose. Spiritual Gifts and natural talents are just two aspects of the same person that God has made for His work.
Training Tomorrow’s Leaders Today,
Matt
These conversations come about because of my insistence that as we move forward with Next In Line, every student that can should take a battery of “tests” that will help them know themselves better. They will also help their teacher know more about them and help them set up a more personalized leadership development program (see the article “Explore” in the Next In Line Starter Kit).
I am finding that many leaders in the church are leery of secular tests that help pinpoint your strengths, as these are not your spiritual gifts. While it is true that we cannot confuse God-given talents with God-given spiritual gifts, I don’t see why we can’t be aware of both.
Some people started asking me which was more important, the Strengths Test, or the Spiritual Gifts test. I couldn’t exactly answer that question, because both are important. Here’s how I broke this down to them, and I hope this is helpful to you as well:
Spiritual Gifts are those supernaturally imparted gifts that God gives to us upon conversion that allow us to perform a certain ministry within the church, for the edification of the body (see Ephesians 4 or Romans 12 for a partial list of the gifts and their purpose). Notice a couple of things about Spiritual Gifts:
1. They are given by God
2. They are supernatural
3. They are for ministry
4. Given at conversion
Strengths (or talents) are also God-given. They are things that God wove into our personality and genetics. They are used for more than just ministry, but cannot be separated from it, as we are created for God. They aren’t exactly listed in the bible, but you know what I’m saying: some of us are better at math than others, and some can publicly speak better than others. Others of us have been given incredible wisdom, or inherently understand mechanical things. Notice a couple of things about Strengths:
1. They are given by God
2. They are not supernatural
3. They are for ministry (and other things)
4. Woven into our fabric as God’s creation
The big difference between the two is when they are given and their nature. Otherwise, they are very similar. Ultimately, they also serve the same purpose: the Missio Dei.
The reason that I insist on students finding out their strengths and their Spiritual Gift(s) is that God often uses both in their call to ministry. I love that God would equip us naturally to do certain things well and then complement that with a Spiritual Gift that brings all the glory from that activity to Him.
Our students are more than their spiritual gifts. They are (much) more than their talents and strengths. They are “fearfully and wonderfully made” for amazing purpose. Spiritual Gifts and natural talents are just two aspects of the same person that God has made for His work.
Training Tomorrow’s Leaders Today,
Matt
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