Your Spiritual Gifts Can Help Your Church Grow

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Summary: Find Your Gifts and Learn How To Use Them To Bless Others
Review: As a member of God's Church, you have been equipped with unique spiritual gifts to help the Church grow and to reach out to those in your community. But what are your gifts? This book will help you discover them and how to use them to bless others.

This books features a spiritual gifts questionaire to help you determine your gifts. It also includes the lastest information on gift-based ministries in today's Church.

Drawing on nearly 30 years of experience in studying and teaching on spiritual gifts, Dr. C. Peter Wagner has written a thorough, easy-to-understand book that identifies and discusses 27 spiritual gifts, tells you how to find your gifts, and how to use them effectively.

Wagner, whose spiritual gifts seminars have inspired a wide range of pastors and denominations, also gives new insights on the difference between gifts, talents and roles. He also discusses how the gifts can be abused and how to tell real gifts from counterfeit. Finally, he explains five steps to help you use your spiritual gifts to build God's Kingdom.

C. PETER WAGNER is professor of Church Growth at Fuller Theological Seminary, School of World Mission, in Pasadena, California. Recongnized as a leading authority in the fields of evangelism and spiritual warfare, Wagner has written and edited more than 30 books, including the four books of the Prayer Warrior Series: Warfare Prayer, Prayer Shield, Breaking Strongholds in Your City, and Churches that Pray.

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Summary: A Great Help For Church Leaders
Review: Having taught many seminars over the past seven years on Spiritual Gifts and having helped hundreds of people to find thier unique call to ministry through their giftedness, I found this little book to be a treasure of information. It succinctly describes the value of helping church members discover thier gifts and function out of them, leading to fulfilling and enthusiastic service for the Kingdom of God. Church leaders who have read this book in our setting have stopped looking for just "warm breathing bodies" to fill a position, but instead look for a person whose giftedness qualifies them for it and therefore classic burn-out is kept at a minnimum. Peter Wagner is easy to read and speaks clearly to the lay person.

Rating:
Summary: Solid Information of Spiritual Gifts
Review: Perhaps no other book that I have read presents such a clear understanding of what spiritual gifts are, and how they can be used. Wagner outlines 27 different spiritual gifts in a very user friendly format.

The evangelist and pastor seem to be the more emphasized in this book. They are clearly defined and explained. I don't necessarily agree with everything that's written in this book but there is a solid foundation applied here. Everybody develops their own insights to gifts so there is no single book on this topic that every reader will agree with. This book is in the context of church growth, buyers should be aware of that.

Peter Wagner has written a number of good books on church growth, and this book is no exception. This book would be beneficial to pastors and leaders whose churches are moving in this direction. This book would probably be useful to anyone looking to understand this topic more. The author has a great reputation and is well known to be very credible in the area of church growth. This book can give insightful answers to key areas. In my opinion, no leader should be without this book or something like it.

My only real beef with the book is that there is nothing to keep people from confusing character with gifting. I've seen many people over the years place gifting at a higher value than their character. This is a danger that can lead people on a wrong path. As you read this book just make sure you know that character is more important than gifting.

Rating:
Summary: Useful information
Review: This book is perfect for those members of the church body who want to help but aren't sure where to begin. It's also perfect for pastors who want to teach on spiritual gifting, and also encourage church members to exercise their spiritual gifts with benefit to the church.

Wagner's writing is succinct, humorous, and clear. This book sheds light not only on different spiritual gifts, but theories surrounding them (the book draws from several lists in the Bible, none of which completely mention every spiritual gift), common misconceptions, as well as a test in the back of the book to help each person begin to get a sense of what his or her spiritual gifts might be.

The book is geared toward using spiritual gifts to help the church grow, and therefore focuses on some spiritual gifts more than others (to my disappointment, the ones barely touched upon seemed more relevant to me than the ones greatly expounded upon -- ah well, another book perhaps). I appreciated Wagner's candor and openness to other scholar's theories about spiritual giftings, as well as his standpoints on misuses of spiritual gifts.

This book is highly recommended as a place to begin your studies on spiritual giftings, especially in the context of gifts within the church body.

Rating:
Summary: Useful information
Review: This book is perfect for those members of the church body who want to help but aren't sure where to begin. It's also perfect for pastors who want to teach on spiritual gifting, and also encourage church members to exercise their spiritual gifts with benefit to the church.

Wagner's writing is succinct, humorous, and clear. This book sheds light not only on different spiritual gifts, but theories surrounding them (the book draws from several lists in the Bible, none of which completely mention every spiritual gift), common misconceptions, as well as a test in the back of the book to help each person begin to get a sense of what his or her spiritual gifts might be.

The book is geared toward using spiritual gifts to help the church grow, and therefore focuses on some spiritual gifts more than others (to my disappointment, the ones barely touched upon seemed more relevant to me than the ones greatly expounded upon -- ah well, another book perhaps). I appreciated Wagner's candor and openness to other scholar's theories about spiritual giftings, as well as his standpoints on misuses of spiritual gifts.

This book is highly recommended as a place to begin your studies on spiritual giftings, especially in the context of gifts within the church body.