Session 9 · Guide and forms

Homework for Session 9: Naming the Gift

Naming the Gift

WhyzMen · Rewire Retirement · Session 8 Homework, due Session 9

“Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”

1 Corinthians 12:7

Gifts are not issued to a man for his own use. They are issued to him for other people — which is why the last word on your gifts does not belong to you, and does not belong to a website either. It belongs to the men who have watched you for eight weeks. Your job this week is not to score yourself. It is to gather evidence for that conversation.

IF ANYONE SPEAKS — 1 Peter 4:11
Teaching	Making a complicated thing clear to someone who needs it
Encouragement paraklesis	Coming alongside a man who is about to quit
Truth-telling propheteia	Saying the true thing when it costs you something
Leadership	Seeing where a group needs to go, and taking them there

IF ANYONE SERVES — 1 Peter 4:11
Administration kybernesis	Turning a good intention into a plan that actually runs
Serving diakonia	Seeing what needs doing and doing it without being asked
Mercy	Sitting with suffering without needing to fix it
Giving	Releasing resources freely, usually without telling anyone
Hospitality	Making a stranger feel expected rather than tolerated
Shepherding	Staying with people over years, not projects
Faithfulness	Being the one who is still there in year eleven

Scripture names gifts in several places, and the lists differ. This card draws its language mainly from Romans 12:4–8 and 1 Peter 4:9–11, with administration from 1 Corinthians 12:28 and shepherding from 1 Peter 5:2. It is a vocabulary for naming what we have seen in each other — not a complete catalogue.

Four Passes

Fifteen to twenty minutes. Bring this page to Session 9.

1	Cross out the six that clearly are not you. Start by subtracting. Men are far more accurate about what they are not than about what they are — and crossing out carries none of the false modesty that circling does.

2	For each one left standing, name an instance. No instance, no claim. A gift you admire is not a gift you have. If the line stays blank, that is information — keep it blank.

GIFT	NOT ME	WHEN DID I LAST DO THIS WITHOUT BEING ASKED? Name the person, and roughly when.
Teaching
Encouragement
Truth-telling
Leadership
Administration
Serving
Mercy
Giving
Hospitality
Shepherding
Faithfulness

What has someone else named in you that you waved off?

Almost every man has been told something — you are good with the young guys, you should be teaching this — and deflected it. Go get it. It was someone else’s observation in the first place, which makes it better evidence than anything you can generate about yourself tonight.

4	Circle two or three with the strongest evidence. Then finish the sentence. Write it in pencil. “Suspect” stays in — next week the room gets a vote, and it may name something you did not.

I suspect I have been given _________________________________

because _______________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

If three men name something next week that you did not nominate, the homework did not fail. That is the exercise working.

Romans 12:4–8

New International Version

4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your[a] faith; 7 if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; 8 if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead,[b] do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.

1 Peter 4:9–11

New International Version

9 Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 11 If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.

1 Corinthians 12:7

New International Version

7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.