Tara speaks

I have been MIA for awhile from this blog because we moved and life was chaos... but since the question in the post below is from me I thought I might explain a little better what I meant.

I am talking specifically about how spiritual gifts play out in the church, in community. We all know how some of the gifts "look"- preaching, teaching, encouragement, hospitality those are pretty easy to see. But how about the gift of wisdom? or discernment? Or how about the gift of tongues with interpretation in some of the more conservative denominations? How about prophecy?

How do we, as a community, encourage those with the gift of wisdom to use it? What would it look like if they DID use it? How do we facilitate the gift of discernment in our churches? How do we respond to people with those gifts? Is there a way for those gifts to be used publicly or only in one-on-one situations?

For example say that the board of elders is meeting about an issue of great importance to the church body and they are stuck. They just don't know what to do. So the chairman of the board goes home and shares his frustrations with his wife. His wife happens to have the gift of discernment. She has an immediate and clear answer. How should she and her husband go about sharing this revelation? Would anyone listen if they did? What if she stood up on Sunday and shared her wisdom with the congregation... is that even an option? And how do the general masses in church know whether a person has the gift of wisdom or is just a crackpot who wants attention?

I have talked to many people who don't know what there "place" is in church... some of these likely have "less obvious" spiritual gifts, gifts that are harder to see. What is their place? I personally have never seen a sign-up list for those with the gift of discernment to join a discernment committee. But I have seen dozens of sign-up lists for those with the gift of teaching (we need Sunday school teachers), or hospitality (we need billets for the visiting choir tour), or helps (we need folks to help us fix up this building), etc.

I have been a pastor's wife for almost 10 years and I definitely have NOT figured this out. Feel free to enlighten me!

Question about Gifts...

Hey all.  Tara had a question awhile ago that we never got to, so I'm gonna throw it out there and see if anyone is still alive enough to answer.

What are spiritual gifts?  How do they work in the Church?  Do they work in your Church at all?

Have at it!