Gifted Leadership

If a congregation of believers is being led by people who are using their spiritual gifts, the expectation of success in ministry should be multiplied. If a congregation is being led by one person, with a random spiritual gift – maybe pastor, maybe evangelist, maybe teacher – it should be expected that the person will either be fired or will quit because of the stress and failure that are related to attempting to do work that isn’t related to and empowered by their spiritual gift. It is not a question of being educated. It is the very critical question of what each person’s gift from the Spirit is, and what work can come in that life with that gift as its source.

For as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of that body, though many, are one body—so also is Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. So the body is not one part but many. If the foot should say, “Because I’m not a hand, I don’t belong to the body,” in spite of this it still belongs to the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I’m not an eye, I don’t belong to the body,” in spite of this it still belongs to the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But now God has placed the parts, each one of them, in the body just as He wanted. And if they were all the same part, where would the body be? Now there are many parts, yet one body.

So the eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” nor again the head to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, all the more, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are necessary. And those parts of the body that we think to be less honorable, we clothe these with greater honor, and our unpresentable parts have a better presentation. But our presentable parts have no need of clothing. Instead, God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the less honorable, so that there would be no division in the body, but that the members would have the same concern for each other. So if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.

Now you are the body of Christ, and individual members of it. And God has placed these in the church:

first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, next, miracles,
then gifts of healing, helping, managing, various kinds of languages.
Are all apostles? Are all prophets?
Are all teachers? Do all do miracles?
Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in languages?
Do all interpret?

But desire the greater gifts. And I will show you an even better way.
(1 Corinthians 12:12-31 HCSB ©®)