Gifts and Growth

In Wayne Pohl’s first church, a mission congregation in suburban Grand Rapids, Michigan, he decided every one of his leaders had to be an evangelist. After all, how could the congregation grow if the church board didn’t set the pace? Although most of the men participated willingly, one good administrator threw up every Thursday night before making his evangelism calls. “You’ll get over it,” Pohl assured him. “You just have to get out and do it.” But he didn’t get over it, and a gifted leader was lost.

Now after years in the pastorate, Pohl easily could author a bestseller on 1001 Church Programs That Sounded Good But Failed. He was, for instance, the sole creator and developer of “My Brother’s Keeper,” a program to get active church members to shepherd inactive ones. Many of the active members, however, were reticent, and to grab, encourage, and build up another brother or sister seemed an insurmountable task. After the program fell flat, Pohl seriously questioned the dedication and even the Christianity of his parishioners.

That was in 1974. It was his first year at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Trenton, Michigan. This parish, with its stately suburban structure just beyond the steaming, clamoring factories of down-river Detroit, had a highly inactive membership at the time. With little outreach and negligible growth, there was just enough religious status quo to float the church and its $100,000 budget on a sea of self-satisfied content.

“People hesitated to commit themselves to church involvement for many reasons,” Pohl says, “most of which boiled down to one word—fear. Fear of making a mistake, fear of not pleasing the staff, fear of failing the Lord, fear of being forced to do something they did not feel comfortable doing. Yet here I was insisting from the outset that I could only feel comfortable in a total-commitment ministry.”

Would the congregation spark up or would Wayne Pohl lower his expectations? Would pastor and parish end up deadlocked, or would they search together for a viable path to progress?

Today, Pohl is still the pastor of St. Paul, which has become a strong and growing ministry. Growth did not come about by gimmickry or coercion. It came because of a serious, methodical search for the gifts the Holy Spirit had already placed in the congregation, and a commitment to put them to use.

Wayne Pohl had read enough of McGavran, Schaller, Schuller, and Wagner to know that a thorough evaluation of attitudes, programs, and finances was the first step to revitalizing St. Paul. The evaluation had to come from outside. “These people loved their church,” he adds. “How could they objectively look at the warts on it?”

They asked the Fuller Evangelistic Association in Pasadena, California, to do a thorough diagnostic analysis. The Fuller people probed St. Paul’s purpose, philosophy of ministry, growth history, and local community by first sending questionnaires to the staff, and next by talking personally with staff members and laypersons during an on-site visit. In the final published analysis—besides some puffy adjectives about what a great crew the staff members were (“pro-active leader,” “executive style,” “unusual poise”) some interesting conclusions emerged.

It was determined that approximately 150,000 people live within a six-mile radius of the church. Based on the Glenmary Research Center (Washington, D.C.) report that 42.3 percent of Michigan residents are unchurched, Fuller projected that 63,450 people within these six miles were the potential mission field. Most of the surrounding community had basically similar professions and lifestyles. So the church couldn’t help but grow numerically if it really wanted to, said the report.

Although the researchers pointed out that their intent was not to prescribe a detailed “how-to” about the future planning, they did offer recommendations for future action.

The recommendations surfaced during a dinner meeting one August night at a local restaurant. During the meeting, Pohl was called away on an emergency. By the time he returned, the meeting had broken up. Some members were headed for their cars, and some were still standing around in clusters.

“How did it go?” Pohl asked, stepping from his car.

“Pastor, you know what this church needs?” someone replied. “We need a minister of spiritual gifts.”

“That’s interesting,” Pohl answered. “What is one?”

A Powerful Seed

With encouragement from the Fuller people, the staff and committed laity made a key decision: the discovery and implementation of each church member’s spiritual gifts would be central to making St. Paul a growing, committed, healthy body of believers. Fuller had listed the church’s highest priorities: worship, Christian education, discipling, fellowship, and evangelism. Discovering and using spiritual gifts would enable each member, according to his or her strengths, to enter these priority areas of ministry. To help that happen, a minister of spiritual gifts was needed.

After a search, Art Beyer, a former parochial schoolteacher with a master’s degree in educational administration, was chosen. He began to brainstorm with the staff on how they might go about their task. “We sat down, discussed what we wanted to accomplish in helping people discover and implement their gifts, and agreed to establish the program on three basic premises,” says Art.

We should have an area of service for every gift.
Since we are a conservative Lutheran body, we will eliminate the discovery and exercise of the gifts of tongues and miracles-gifts that would be divisive in our church.
We need a list of all service areas so people will know they have a place to serve as soon as they discover their gifts.

These premises led to an adaptation of the 125-question form from Fuller that pinpoints the specific strengths and skills of individuals. The church’s version is entitled the Spiritual Gifts Analysis, with only 85 questions.

The questions are written in the form of statements, with four responses to designate how proficient the person is at performing the function described. For example, five questions scattered throughout the form determine the gift of administration:

1. Easily delegate important responsibilities to other people. Much_Some_ Little_ None_

18. Have the ability to organize ideas, things, time, and people for effective work. Much_Some_ Little_ None_

35. Able to work with facts and figures with positive results and personal satisfaction. Much_Some_ Little_ None_

52. Plan and administer programs that will be of benefit to my fellow Christians. Much_Some_ Little_ None_

69. Able to set goals and objectives, and to make plans to reach and accomplish them. Much_Some_ Little_ None_

Each answer has a point value: 3, 2, 1, or O. If the answers to each of the five questions above were “Much,” it would give the respondent a total of 15 (5 x 3), the highest possible score for any gift. But scores that are slightly lower still could mean that the person is strong in a particular gift. .

The analysis features questions uniquely suited to its needs. For instance, questions that zero in on the gift of teaching have a bent toward teaching Lutheran doctrine.

“It’s essential for churches to personalize their own spiritual gifts program,” says Pohl. Thus, St. Paul’s analysis is adapted to bring out fifteen gifts, each of which can be used readily in a service area. These gifts are: administration, craftsmanship (manual and artistic), evangelism, exhortation-wisdom, giving, helps, hospitality, intercession, knowledge, leadership, mercy, music (vocal and instrumental), serving, teaching, and writing. (The basic Scripture texts for the gifts are Romans 12, I Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4; other scattered references provide the rationale for such gifts as writing, music, and craftsmanship.)

Reactions

Not long ago a couple moved to Trenton from Pennsylvania. They had been member of a Lutheran church for a long time, but they felt burned out and wanted a few years of sabbatical from church involvement. Church membership at St. Paul sounded good to them but they wanted no more involvement than worship on Sunday and the weekly tithe. Pohl talked to them about gifts and about body life. On the basis of Scripture he told them, “If you become a part of this body and do not function, then the body will not work.” The couple had trouble accepting this, so they transferred their membership to another church.

Unusually bold? Yes, but as Pohl points out, “Ninety percent of our parishes across the country require less commitment than the local Kiwanis club.”

Once a commitment to service is understood a membership applicant’s next meeting is with Art Beyer. Art, big-boned, soft-spoken, and prayerminded, administers the Spiritual Gifts Analysis. Although there is a minimum of intimidation, the twelve-page test unnerves some.

Chris took the test with apprehension. “It overwhelmed me a little. I was already in my profession, school teaching, and now some questionnaire was going to tell me what I was good at.”

After her initial hesitation, Chris felt good about taking the analysis. She felt it offered a challenge to discover how she would fit into this particular church.

A young man, Paul, had similar feelings. “I was confused. When you’ve never really been active in a church, all the talk about spiritual gifts can be very threatening.” This is where Art Beyer’s nonthreatening manner becomes important. Says Paul, “As soon as Art explained the analysis in such an easygoing way, I began to lose my reluctance. And once I got into the questionnaire, I realized It was a tool to help me grow, and lost all hesitation.”

Ideally, the analysis test should intimidate no one. Pohl points out, “There’s a certain looseness in taking the test. We don’t say, ‘All right, you took our analysis and tested out with the gifts of helps and serving; you’re a helps-and-serving person from now till the day you die.’ The analysis is not the second inspired writing on the face of the earth.” he adds with a smile.

The purpose of the analysis is to help people serve. “God wants his people to serve,” Pohl says. “Although the analysis encourages them to be consistent with this demand, it does not insist on our way of making them serve.”

Another young woman, Liz, knew she had some kind of talent for making people feel she really cared about them. In her work at a local hospital she would hear comments such as “I feel you’re the kind of person I can really talk to.” When she took the analysis, she scored a fourteen in the gift of mercy and a thirteen in the gift of intercession. “When I tested out with these gifts,” she says, “I got excited; I felt special. It seemed to me I really had something our church needed.”

Experimenting

A gift discovered often will be a total surprise to a person taking the analysis. Cheryl, for instance, who admits she cannot carry a tune, appeared to have the gift of music. She told Art Beyer that the test had made a mistake, so she took the test again, and it came out exactly the same. But it wasn’t until six months later that she took the results seriously.

In December that year, during the gaiety of the holiday season, Cheryl attended a candlelight service for Advent. As the diffused light from the candles glowed, she listened to a group of people play handbells. After the service she approached the handbell choir director, who guaranteed she could teach anyone, even nonmusical types, to play the bells. So Cheryl joined the group, despite an evident lack of formal musical skills, learned to play the handbells and has enjoyed it for two years now. “It’s something that gives me the deepest inner joy,” she emphasizes. “I needed a creative way to express my love for Christ.”

Cheryl’s experience brings out an interesting dimension of the gift program’s success: While the analysis discovers what people are good at, it also discovers what they want to be good at. Cheryl wanted musical involvement; fortunately she found a place to serve, and the body will be enriched because of her involvement.

Of course, before someone like Cheryl can find a place to serve, the minister of spiritual gifts needs to make the person aware of the areas of service for his or her particular gifts. At St. Paul, Art Beyer uses a “Development and Use Form,” which lists more than 200 places to serve.

• After the Spiritual Gifts Analysis has been taken, the person checks each area of service he or she wants to be involved in.

• Art catalogs the responses, then contacts the administrators of each board, committee, and gift area who can use the person’s newly discovered gift.

• It is up to each administrator to contact the gifted person and invite him or her to experiment in some area of involvement that directly makes use of the discovered gift.

Diana was on the church picnic committee last year. Instead of organizing a group of volunteers by their spiritual gifts, she unthinkingly turned in a bulletin announcement: “Volunteers Wanted for Planning Church Picnic.” Beyer caught this before the bulletin went into print, phoned Diana, and reminded, “That’s not the way we run our church, remember?” He gave her a list of people with gifts of helps, hospitality, and serving, and she administered a successful picnic with the volunteers from those areas.

Why are people more prone to involvement once they know their gifts? “Our people feel they have ownership here,” says Pohl. “Furthermore, they understand their gifts are of equal importance. The Bible doesn’t say one gift is more important than another. The Sunday school superintendent’s gift, for instance, is no more important than the person’s whose function it is to print merit certificates. This keeps all the people working together; they feel a sense of mutual contribution and ownership.”

Don, a man whose test pointed to a gift of craftsmanship, was called directly by Art Beyer to use his gifts with the board of trustees. A need for coat racks had been raised, and Don was consulted about what direction to take. His suggestions were well received. So with hammers, drills, and a lot of wood, Don and the trustees built the coat racks, stained them, and installed them. They spent many hours on the project. “Afterward,” Don says, “the trustees received a note from those who had voiced the need for coat racks. The people were thankful and impressed. It was a very satisfying experience.”

The Verities in Action

Don’s statement about receiving personal affirmation from others in the church emphasizes just one of the verities about the body working together to encourage and build up one another. With the gifts program at St. Paul, these verities take on fresh meaning as they are set in a challenging new context.

•The necessity of each church member’s involvement in a share group is stressed. St. Paul’s groups, each with approximately a dozen members, usually meet once or twice a month, sometimes in the same house, sometimes rotating houses. It is the responsibility of one of the pastors to see that new members are channeled into these groups.

One group leader mentioned that the share-group experience will sometimes make or break a person in terms of commitment. It is a time for disclosing the feelings, crises, and disappointments one experiences in his or her larger involvement in the church. This particular leader, whose gift is administration, tells about a time when her frustration level over Sunday school was suddenly very high. “I felt I had a remarkably small proportion of Sunday school teachers who were really committed,” she says. “Trying to get them to attend our monthly teachers’ meeting frustrated me terribly. Just when my frustrations reached a climax, though, I bounced them off my share group. It really helped to have good listeners and pertinent suggestions.”

•The need for personal affirmation from the pastor, while not heavily stressed, is seen as important. One young man, who had recently put his leadership gift to work on one of the church boards, said, “At the beginning, I always was kept from getting too discouraged by Pastor Pohl’s or others’ personal comments on how I was doing. They wouldn’t just say, ‘Hey, you’re doing a great job; keep up the good work,’ and walk away. They were more concerned about how I thought I was doing. They spent time finding out what my feelings were about my board activities.”

In making conscious efforts to affirm people as they exercise their gifts, Pohl will sometimes telephone a member or write a short note. “If someone has sung a meaningful song in the Sunday worship service,” he says, “I’ll pick up the phone on Sunday afternoon to thank the person and tell how the song really moved me.” Last summer the church had two devoted members, each with administrative gifts, who worked under difficult circumstances to put together the Vacation Bible School program for 500 kids. “In situations like that, Pohl adds, “I may take time to write a short note saying, ‘I’m convinced God used you.'”

•Even more important than pastoral affirmation is affirmation that comes directly from the body. In fact, if church members regularly affirm each other’s gifts, personal strokes from the pastor are less needed. “If a Sunday school teacher gets a note from a third grader saying, ‘You helped me to love Jesus, that is far more valuable to the teacher than if I give a framed certificate,” Pohl points out.

Besides the gifts of mercy and intercession, Liz also had the gift of teaching, and she experimented with that gift during Vacation Bible School. There were the normal accompanying doubts at first, but she assumed she could be a teacher because she loved children. The VBS administrator felt that new workers such as Liz should first help the children with handcrafts, a less demanding activity. Finally, she agreed to let Liz do one of the lessons.

Kneeling down in the center of a circle, Liz began to share the story of Paul on the road to Damascus. “I kept thinking the story was going over their heads,” Liz confesses. “How could these kids possibly grasp Paul’s change from a man who hurt God’s people to a man who loved them?”

But through her gift, the kids did grasp it, and they began to ask questions. “I felt this was God working through me,” Liz adds, “and the confirmation I had from the children and other teachers built me up. The gift seemed real.”

How Growth Happens

In any church, the fact that Pastor X phones Volunteer Y to perform Function Z means practically nothing to the volunteer. But when Pastor X phones Volunteer Y because this volunteer has the necessary skills and desire—and knows he or she does—something special happens.

As one trustee craftsman points out, “When you’re gifted to do something, and you, the pastors, and the congregation know it, then a phone call for your services just seems natural”

So the phone calls come. The people get involved. “And the church works better than before,” say the staff and members of St. Paul. Their service can be measured in hours per week, not hours per year. The people interviewed for this article estimate they put in anywhere between ten and twenty hours per week into the programs at St. Paul. This is not exceptional for this church.

It necessarily follows that since the established members are mostly involved in body life functions within the church, their involvement in “the world” is curtailed greatly. Does this mean St. Paul’s evangelism commitment is weak?

“The best means for reaching the unchurched,” answers Pohl, “are the contacts of the new members in the congregation. I could not give you the name of one close friend of mine who is not a committed Christian. But the new Christian has friends, relatives, and neighbors who are not Christians. If there’s a change in that person’s life, that is the best witness God can give.

“It’s the old satisfied-customer phenomenon. I bought a Ford station wagon because I had a neighbor who said, ‘I bought a Ford wagon four years ago; it has 85,000 miles on it, and it purrs like a kitten.’

“That’s how people usually enter the fellowship at St. Paul. They talk to a satisfied customer—someone who says, ‘I bought into this church two years ago; I’m serving and loving it.'”

One parishioner expressed it this way: “I’ve found that being involved in the spiritual gifts program provides a good witnessing opportunity in itself. Some of my friends have actually used me as an example of commitment to the Lord. My best friend was a member of a small church, and he barely dragged himself there once a month. He visited St. Paul with me a few times before I became involved with my gifts, but that was all it was—a visit.

“After taking the gifts analysis, though, I became so involved that my time to spend with my friend was cut down considerably. Ironically, that was when he began to attend St. Paul of his own accord. One day he told me, ‘Watching the people of your church grow has shown me how dead I am spiritually.'”

The friend eventually joined St. Paul, discovered through the analysis his gift of serving, and became an officer of the church. For Wayne Pohl and St. Paul Lutheran Church, it was another sign that their approach to using parishioners’ gifts wisely and systematically has been blessed by God.