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    Understanding Spiritual Gifts Leader's Guide
    Understanding Spiritual Gifts Leader's Guide
    Understanding Spiritual Gifts Leader's Guide
    Ebook31 pages1 hour

    Understanding Spiritual Gifts Leader's Guide

    By Mary Lou Redding

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    About this ebook

    Understanding Spiritual Gifts Participant's Book is available for small group members.

    This leader's guide includes a process and resources for an introductory meeting and 6 weekly meetings of either 45 or 90 minutes. The longer format includes group lectio divina (contemplation of and individual response to scripture) in each session.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUpper Room Books
    Release dateApr 15, 2017
    ISBN9780835816144
    Understanding Spiritual Gifts Leader's Guide
    Author

    Mary Lou Redding

    Mary Lou Redding, now retired, served for many years as editorial director of *The Upper Room** daily devotional guide. A Florida native, she lives in Nashville, Tennessee. She holds a BA in English Literature from Oral Roberts University and an MA in Rhetoric and Writing from the University of Tulsa. Redding is the author of *The Power of a Focused Heart** and *Where the World Meets to Pray** (a history of The Upper Room); she also compiled and edited *Prayers for Life's Ordinary and Extraordinary Moments.** Mary Lou is a member of Brentwood United Methodist Church.

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      Book preview

      Understanding Spiritual Gifts Leader's Guide - Mary Lou Redding

      Other titles in the series

      Continue exploring the Bible with these spiritual-formation resources.

      Entering the Old Testament

      Participant’s Workbook • 978-0-8358-9945-1

      Leader’s Guide 978-0-8358-9946-8

      Entering the New Testament

      Participant’s Workbook • 978-0-8358-9967-3

      Leader’s Guide • 978-0-8358-9968-0 0

      Entering the Psalms

      Participant’s Workbook • 978-0-8358-9973-4

      Leader’s Guide • 978-0-8358-9975-8 0

      Order at your local bookstore, by phone, or online.

      1-800-972-0433

      Bookstore.UpperRoom.org

      MEETING GOD IN SCRIPTURE

      Understanding Spiritual Gifts: Leader’s Guide

      Copyright © 2010 by Upper Room Books®

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, write: Upper Room Books®, 1908 Grand Avenue, Nashville, TN 37212.

      Upper Room Books® website: books.upperroom.org

      UPPER ROOM®, UPPER ROOM BOOKS®, and design logos are trademarks owned by The Upper Room®, a ministry of GBOD, Nashville, Tennessee. All rights reserved.

      Unless otherwise stated, scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. All rights reserved. Used by permission of International Bible Society.

      The articles What Is Spiritual Formation?, Moving Forward in Spiritual Formation, Meeting God in Scripture, Meeting God in Community, and Meeting God in Everyday Life originally appeared in The Spiritual Formation Bible, New Revised Standard Version, copyright © 1999 by The Zondervan Company. All rights reserved. The Bible is currently available as The Meeting God Bible (Upper Room Books).

      The Spiritual Gifts Inventory Statements, Instructions, Key, Definitions, Scripture Translations, and Clusters were developed by Dan R. Dick. Copyright © 2001 by Discipleship Resources. Used by permission.

      Cover design: Anderson Design Group

      Cover photos: © Shutterstock Images LLC, iStock International Inc., Photos.com

      Interior design: PerfecType, Nashville, TN

      ISBN 978-0-8358-1014-2 | Mobi ISBN 978-0-8358-1613-7 | ePub ISBN 978-0-8358-1614-4

      Printed in the United States of America

      Contents

      INTRODUCTION

      OBSTACLES TO HEARING GOD IN SCRIPTURE

      THE PROCESS FOR GROUP LECTIO DIVINA

      INFORMATIONAL AND FORMATIONAL READING

      SESSIONS

      Introductory Session     Shaped by God

      Session 1     To Equip the Saints

      Session 2     There’s Only One You

      Session 3     Beyond the List of Ordinary Gifts

      Session 4     Till All Come to Maturity

      Session 5     With a Little Help from My Friends

      Session 6     Not Hearers Only

      SPIRITUAL GIFTS INVENTORY KEY, DEFINITIONS, SCRIPTURE

      SPIRITUAL GIFTS CLUSTERS

      WHAT IS SPIRITUAL FORMATION?

      MOVING FORWARD IN SPIRITUAL FORMATION

      MEETING GOD IN SERVICE

      MEETING GOD IN COMMUNITY

      MEETING GOD IN EVERYDAY LIFE

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      Introduction

      Welcome to Meeting God in Scripture: Understanding Spiritual Gifts. During the next seven weeks, you and your small group will explore spiritual gifts using selected passages from the Bible. Understanding Spiritual Gifts is not intended as an exhaustive study of all that the Bible says about spiritual gifts. Rather, it takes a personal, reflective approach, going beyond lists. In addition to completing a self-scored gifts inventory, participants will reflect on their interests, preferences, and talents. As participants read and respond to scripture and participate in small-group sessions, they will be guided to consider prayerfully how God is calling them to use their gifts day by day.

      This particular subject of study requires that as the leader of the group, you will have a special role to play by giving attention to those gifts you see in participants. Many people have difficulty seeing themselves as gifted, and so they may need help to claim their gifts and see possibilities for using them. Each week, note abilities, interests, and passions you see in participants as you watch and hear them talk. What makes each one’s eyes light up? What does one person or another talk about excitedly? Who sees needs and immediately acts to respond? Who has a gift for listening to others or offering comfort? Who prefers doing rather than just talk? (These people may actually use phrases like put your money where your mouth is or where the rubber meets the road.) You may want to prepare a sheet for each person in the group and add observations as the weeks pass. After each session, plan to take a few minutes to record what you notice. In later sessions, these observations will enable you to personalize discussions of gifts and how they are used in ordinary situations.

      The daily Bible readings and responses require ten to fifteen minutes a day, and they lead up to and become the starting point for a weekly small-group meeting. Group members who want to do more are encouraged to keep a personal journal; the participant workbook says more about this on pages 8–9.

      This leader’s guide includes a process and resources for an introductory meeting and six weekly meetings of either 45 or 90 minutes. The time for the introductory meeting may vary, depending on how many persons attend and how long you spend on community-building activities. Using the 45-minute pattern may require you to adjust times for the opening and closing exercises; you will also eliminate the weekly lectio divina portion of each session.

      In the introductory meeting, you will introduce the approach, process, and content of the remaining sessions. (If your group has completed the sessions in a previous Meeting God in Scripture series, the introductory session need not be repeated.) The group will also establish its ground rules. A major goal of this initial gathering is introducing the spiritual-formation approach to reading scripture that makes this experience different than other studies (more about that below).

      There are suggestions for how much time to spend on each of the elements of each session noted in this leader’s guide. If you try to complete the discussion and reflection activities as a whole group rather than in smaller groups of three or four, you will not be able to complete the activities in the time suggested.

      The most important difference between this study and traditional Bible studies is the spiritual-formation approach. To many participants, this approach may seem a dramatic departure from the analytical, left-brain patterns that often characterize Bible study. The preparatory meeting will acquaint participants with the difference between formational and informational reading of the Bible.

      Meeting Format

      The first 90-minute session includes get-acquainted activities and a group-exploration of a scripture passage (Exploring the Word). Each session (after the introductory session) includes these components:

      •   Opening

      •   Interacting with the Word (in triads)

      •   Exploring the Word (group activity)

      •   Engaging the

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