How To Find Your Ministry?

[Michael]

About four years ago I first read Rick Warren's book called," The Purpose Driven Life ( 1 ). " Just recently I was given another copy of the book and started to read again the sections on SHAPE.

SHAPE is an acrostic for the following five factors.

Spiritual gifts
Heart
Abilities
Personality
Experience

Warren states ( p. 247 ) " The very experiences that you have resented or regretted most in your life - the ones you've wanted to hide and forget - are the experiences God wants to use to help others. They are your ministry!"

Have shared an article before called A Painful Experience which was a major milestone for me regarding career change. This article is posted at

www.angelfire.com/md3/pafn777/painful2.html

Another area of painful experience for me is the area of marriage.

Does this mean that my ministry should be a marriage/job counselor?
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1. An article on Rick Warren' s Purpose Driven Church is at
pafn777.proboards26.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1194698454

[davidinczech001]

God calls us to ministry, and He knows how to show us what our ministry is. In the book of Ephesians, chapter 4, the 5 basic ministries of the church are listed. I have found another quote, this time from Rick Joyner, in his article "Join or Die", in which he writes,

"Those called to the equipping ministries of the church as listed in Ephesians 4, the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers - are not doing their job of "equipping the saints to do the work of ministry"(see Ephesians 4:12), but rather are focussing on doing it themselves. We have relegated much of the training and preparation for ministry to schools and seminaries, which may be doing a good job as is possible, but the biblical way for raising up ministries is discipleship. Everyone in ministry should have a number of students they are training and helping to release to do what they are doing.
...
Christians have learned to come in, pay their money, sit patiently, and cheer on a few who are paid to perform for them. ...
The very first thing that the Lord Jesus Himself did when He started His ministry was to begin building a team that He was going to pass everything on to. I have traveled the world quite extensively and can count on one hand the churches and ministries that have done this. These are the most vital, thriving churches that I personally know of. This does not necessarily mean they are the biggest, but they are the most healthy. Many of the largest churches are built on just one ministry, and when something happens to that one ministry, those churches can be in serious trouble."

[Michael]

see new thread on Mentoring at

pafn777.proboards26.com/index.cgi?board=other&action=display&thread=1195307813

[andrew]

awsesome book of which I have read this too , awsesome godbless all