Posted by Mike O on: 07.03.2008 /
This is the 2nd in a five-part series on a class I’m taking at church called “S.H.A.P.E Workshop.” I wrote an intro and explained the class last week, so I’ll refrain from that here. Suffice it to say that there are five basic components that make up who a person is -
S - Spiritual Gifts (Week 3)
H - Heart/Passion (Week 1)
A - Abilities (Week 2)
P - Personality (Week 4)
E - Experiences (Week 5)
This week’s class was on abilities, and how we all have certain abilities that God has provided us with. In a spiritual context, your abilities may indicate what you will do when you serve in ministry - but not necessarily. In a non-spiritual context, your abilities are the things you could do well for others - if you wanted to.
That language is intentionally *soft* (may and could) - just because you have certain abilities doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s what you should spend your time doing, especially if you don’t enjoy it and/or it doesn’t fulfill you. But it’s a good possibility that utilizing your abilities (working within your strengths) is a good way to maximize your ability to help others. For example, I have pretty strong technical abilities, but just because I’m good at it and I make my living with those abilities, that doesn’t mean that’s what I should do in my spare time. Does that make sense?
One statistic that was provided was that each person has between 500 and 700 abilities. And while many of those may be insignificant (the ability to hear, for example), you can pretty much rest assured that everyone has something that they are good at that they could use to help others.
Have you seen the movie, Searching for Bobby Fischer? It’s the true story of Josh Waitzkin, a 6-year-old chess prodigy who picked up the game by watching men play in the park. A clip from that movie was used to illustrate an example of someone with an obvious natural ability (his happened to be playing chess). Anyway, it’s a great family movie if you’ve never seen it and are looking for something to do with your kids.
Now we can start to put the pieces together (we have two so far - heart/passion and abilities) to see how a person’s personal make-up is being revealed. For example, if someone had a passion for protecting the innocent (like Jason - children and animals) combined with an ability to make/raise money, they may do fundraisers for causes near to their heart. On the other hand, someone with the same passion for the innocent combined with an knack for public speaking may be better suited for rallying supporters for those causes. Do you see how the pieces start to work together?
Next week will be the sticky one - Spiritual Gifts. I realize I won’t have a lot of support for this element, but in the interest of completeness and discussion, that one is on tap for next week.
Comment by: Jason
1Hmm, “abilities that God has provided us with”. Like skepticism? ;)
OK, I get it, it’s a way to examine our skills and abilities and how they relate to our passions. While I do love animal and am passionate about animal rights I really dislike indifference. Fundraising puts you right in the face of indifference and says “look at me, I’ve got a cause, support it”. When others dismiss or ignore my passions I become disillusioned and irritated. That’s why I rarely fund raise directly these days. I find that I can support my causes in other ways where my bolshy argumentative nature is an asset.
The statistic of 500-700 abilities seems very low. I suppose it all depends on what you consider to be an attribute or property of a person and what you consider to be an ability. I can see them blurring together.