How Many Gifts Do I Have?--Gifts FAQ

The previous few posts and next few posts capture some questions from a recent Your Unique Design gifts class. One participant asked, with regard to her gifts:

I feel like I have lots of secondary gifts (maybe because I was in ministry for so long). Can you just have a lot of gifts or is it just the top two?

Usually in a Your Unique Design gifts class gathering, I have participants share only their top two gifts--mostly in the interest of time and because, typically, those are the two that people generally agree with in their results without a lot of debriefing. However, the majority of people have 3 to 5 top-scoring gifts in their results, and it is perfectly normal to have that many. Look for the break in your scoring (for example, perhaps you have a 13, two 12’s, and two 11’s, then everything else is under 9). Focus on the top five.

If, instead, it is the case that you have, say, ten gifts tied for a score of 12, it is more likely that some of those are spiritual gifts and some reflect more of how you have walked with Jesus for so long that He has transformed that part of you life and/or you have been faithful in a spiritual discipline such that you were able to answer the assessment questions in the affirmative. Here is where asking 3-5 people who know you well to weigh in can be very helpful. Give them a copy of the list of gifts and/or let them peruse the chart in your book (showing gifts definitions/adjectives) or online here. Ask them which 3-5 gifts they see you using. Where does their input overlap with your results? That overlap is likely your primary gift set.

Set aside some time to read more about each of these gifts in other blog posts—some give extensive definitions; others provide Scriptural references that can be helpful. Take time to pray and ask the Lord to provide His wisdom and His discernment and His encouragement along the way. He will.

Shirley Giles Davis, author of the God. Gifts. You. Your Unique Calling and Design workbook, Your Unique Design Class Guide, Your Unique Design Facilitator Guide, DIOS. DONES. TÚ.: Tu llamado y diseño único (Spanish Edition), and Gifts-Calling-Purpose blog, is a consultant, coach, facilitator who has worked with hundreds of faith-based organizations, nonprofit agencies, and executive leaders in a diversity of fields for four decades. She currently serves as Catalyst for Equipping at her church.

Photo © Shirley Giles Davis.

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