Saturday, June 13, 2015

29 with 20 yrs of Experience

Yep.  I'm a woman admitting my age.  Or at least what will be my age tomorrow.  I wish I was creative enough (or in denial enough) to come up with how to state my age.  My friend from high school, Lisa Mayfield, came up with this.  I liked it enough that I told her I was going to steal/use it.

My actual 29th birthday, when I had no experience at being 29, was the last birthday I spent in Kansas.  I had just come back from Colombia, where I has spent the school year teaching at El Camino Academy.  The school has gone through at lot of changes since I was a teacher there.  And to the Class of 1995... It's been fun seeing how you have grown over the years.

The 20 yrs of experience... well that's too long of a story for one blog entry.  However, there are some changes that bear mentioning... and I'm not just talking about hair color... although that's changed several times.

In preparation for the new sermon series on Spiritual Gifts at church, I took a new spiritual gifts analysis.  I have to admit the results were somewhat surprising to me.  I think this is the first time that "Administration" was not one of my highest gifts.  (So there Chad McMillan and Darren Williams, the 2 who tagged me with the gift of Administration all those years ago. And aren't you jealous Jennie Loftis)  My top 3 from today's analysis, in order, are Pastor/Shepherd (I'm not going to seminary, so don't go there), Showing Mercy, & Teaching.  The second one kinda put a kink in one of the examples in Pastor Russell's sermon for tomorrow, which I admit made me laugh as I called to tell him.  I'm sure he'll adjust just fine.

It seems that what were once my secondary gifts have become my primary gifts; and what used to be my primary gifts of Serving (helps), Administration & Exhortation (encouragement) are now my secondary gifts.  I'm sure that this is in no small part to leading the Women's Ministry and Small Group Bible Study at The Fellowship at Scofield Farms.  One thing I've learned in my years of experience (even those before age 29) is that spiritual gifts can strengthen and weaken due to use or non-use.  But that doesn't mean I don't use my secondary gifts, or even the ones that are my weakest (Evangelism, Prophesy, & Giving).  I'm still so thankful to Tom Westbrook for the extremely intense retreat on Spiritual Gifts, Spiritual Armor, & Fruit of the Spirit in Spring 1992 which has given me a broader view of spiritual gifts and how to use them.  It has stayed with me all these years, and contributed greatly to the "20 yrs of experience".

If you're in Austin and want to learn more about Spiritual Gifts, join us at The Fellowship at Scofield Farms at 10:00 am on Sundays for the next few weeks.

It will be interested in seeing what the next 20 yrs of experience will bring.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hahaha. Thanks for the shout-out. I remember that retreat as well. I thought it was earlier than 1992, though. I graduated in May of 1992. I'm pretty sure the SG retreat was a couple of years earlier because mine was teaching. This set my trajectory towards teaching at the college level which meant graduate school. Happy 20-years of experience my friend. As Tom would say, "loveyaseeyabye".