The 'Giftedness Assessment'

We're revamping our assimilation process at church a bit. When we joined, the membership class was a 12 week overview of the church's basic beliefs and structure; now, it's been broken into smaller pieces and expanded. We now have an intro class, the membership class (which is a 2-session class), and a discipleship seminar that basically replaced the old 12-week series, as well as a seminar on finding your ministry and another on personal evangelism. Everyone who went through the old class is listed as being the equivalent of a graduate of the discipleship seminar.

The 'ministry' class was offered for the first time last week; those of us in lay leadership positions were strongly encouraged to take the class. Not so much to find our ministry niche per se, but to set an example. My Sweet Baboo was still out of town (driving back, actually) so I took it by myself.

It was actually kind of fun. Our assimilation pastor led the seminar, and he did a really good job of explaining the introspection necessary to articulate one's giftings and interests. We also completed a 140-question personal analysis to help with the process. Yeesh, those things are challenging! I'm never comfortable answering things in the extreme...yes, that's absolutely true about me; no, that's not true about me at all. Most everything landed in the middle, so I'm probably not as ruthlessly honest with myself as would be best.

And, as such, two of my top three 'talents' don't quite match up with my gut feeling about myself; I think those answers were more a function of the way the questions were worded than what I am truly gifted at. But I think the questionnaire was intended more of a help than an absolute definitive process.

Anyway, we left the seminar with homework...to complete a short profile listing our gifts, passions, abilities, personality, experiences and education; sort of a ministry resume, so that we can ultimately be matched with ministries in the church.

I've got mine about half finished. There is not nearly enough room on these pages; I'm a sanguine and a writer and if you ask me the questions I *will* give you my life story.

So now I need to sit down and make myself finish the homework; write about my Christian experience, when I have felt close to God, when I have struggled...what have I learned? And where do I believe I fit best in ministry?

Those are tough questions to answer in one's personal journal; it's really tough to be accountable to someone else for those answers.

But one question stood out to me: 'If I knew I couldn't fail, this is what I would attempt for God with my life:'

I was surprised that an answer popped right up in my spirit: I would start a Christian theatrical group to do excellent, non-cheesy Christian drama to both entertain and challenge people to commit to a deeper relationship with Christ.

We really haven't done any major drama ministry at church for quite a while now; I miss it. Easter is one time in which we've done major productions in the past, so I suppose I am especially aware of that with the holiday approaching without being involved in any preparation for the services. I know these things come in seasons, and, right now, anyway, we are not in a season of large dramatic presentations. I'm sure it'll come back around in time.

So, what does one do with a passion for theater and no theater ministry available at the moment?

Write, dream, learn.

Not too long ago, I re-read an old journal entry that I posted about here, that reminded me that preparation when it looks like nothing is happening is key.

So, the challenge is to learn all I can from my volunteer work with the high school theater department, write and polish the odd scripts I've had working in the back of my head, just as if I knew those things would be needed some day...even if there's no plan anywhere in sight to produce anything.

And answer the homework questions honestly...and briefly. ;)