·     Every elder, priest, teacher, or deacon, is to be ordained according to the gifts and callings of God unto them. (Doctrine and Covenants 17:12a)

·     Seek earnestly the best gifts, always remembering that they are given for the benefit of those who love me and keep all my commandments, and those that seek so to do, that all may be benefited. (Doctrine and Covenants 46:4a-b)

·     For all have not every gift given unto them; for there are many gifts, and to every person is given a gift by the Spirit of God: to some it is given one, and to some is given another, that all may be profited thereby. (Doctrine and Covenants 46:5a-c)

·     All are called according to the gifts of God unto them. (Doctrine and Covenants 119:8b & 156:9b)

·     You live in a world with new challenges, and that world will require new forms of ministry. The priesthood must especially respond to that challenge, and the church is admonished to prayerfully consider how calling and giftedness in the Community of Christ can best be expressed in a new time. (Doctrine and Covenants 162:2c)

You are probably familiar with these scriptures.  We have talked about giftedness for both priesthood and others within the church for a long time.  Yet in many ways, we have not really seemed to embrace the idea that giftedness matters in how we function in the church and, in particular, how we serve in our priesthood ministries.

Organizationally, we often seem to function using the warm body principle—define the roles and responsibilities we feel we need as a congregation, then go about finding people willing to serve in them.  While we may to some degree consider a person’s giftedness, we often end up just trying to find people who are willing to do the jobs so we can fill all of the positions.  In terms of priesthood, we recognize that there are different priesthood offices.  But within these offices we often seem to think that each person is to function in each and every responsibility listed in the scriptures or in other church documents.

If, however, we begin with the idea that calling and giftedness are crucial rather than secondary considerations, a different concept of church organization and priesthood functioning appears.  Rather than defining positions and squeezing people into them (i.e., putting square pegs into round holes), we start with people’s gifts and build ministry opportunities around them.  And rather than expecting our priesthood to be able to do everything on our lists, we expect them to serve primarily in the areas where by natural abilities and training they are particularly called and gifted to serve.

In the coming year, we will be exploring our giftedness, both as individual priesthood and as a congregational ministry team.  We will take some time to explore giftedness and to discover our unique gifts.  And then we will explore how our gifts as a ministry team can be blended together for the benefit of our congregation and our neighbors.  We will get started at the January priesthood meeting.  We invite you to join with us then as we begin our exploration.

Gary Beebe, Pastor

Greg Barentine, Giftedness Exploration Leader