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Spiritual Gifts: What are they?: Conversation · Beyond the Sermon

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  You're listening to Beyond the Sermon, the podcast of First
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  Methodist Church in Collingswood, NJ.
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  On our podcast, the goal is not just to share the sermons we've
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  preached, but to go beyond the sermon and talk about what we're
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  learning and what God is doing in US and in our community.
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  The conversation you're about to join was inspired by a message
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  from our Spring 2026 sermon series, Empowered, Understanding
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  and Exercising the Gifts of the Spirit.
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  You can find more information about our church at
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  fumccollingswood.org. Thanks for joining us for this
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  conversation. How many years were you at camp
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  30? Six years I think.
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  So I, I was trying to tally up real quick.
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  I I know my mom didn't Take Me Out the year I was born in
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  January and there were 4 summers that we were in Uganda and
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  didn't get out there at all during the summer.
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  OK. And there was 1 summer that I
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  worked at a different camp. Well, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa,
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  whoa. Wait a second.
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  So you answered the question differently than how I
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  understood it. It wasn't.
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  How many years, individual years had you been at camp?
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  Like, how long? Like when were you first
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  introduced to Delanco camp? Oh, I thought it was how many
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  summers have I been no present at camp?
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  I took it as like, you've been going to Delanco for this many
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  years until like. Since I was 18 months old.
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  So I was closer. My answer was.
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  Closer No. Closer to 36.
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  No, I'm only 42. Oh, you're right, it was close.
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  A halfway point, so. That would be 41.
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  So nine years difference. There's five years difference.
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  OK, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, so I think the answer is
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  actually 41, according to based off how I understood the
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  question. We can have people, yeah.
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  I mean, if you want to be wrong, that's fine the.
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  Pot, I don't think it's like individual summers, like how
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  many summers have you been? Like Somerset, I have like been
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  out there for a whole week or just was out there at some point
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  or. And he said at some point.
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  Yeah. Yeah, I think he meant like just
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  on the property. Right.
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  So there, that's what I'm saying.
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  There were six years, you know. Like when you started going to
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  the property. No.
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  Not like. No.
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  OK. Feel free to weigh in if you
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  think. I'm going to call Brianna,
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  right? Get Kenny on the phone, clarify
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  the the question. But that's that's how I
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  understood it. So that's why I was surprised
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  because I was like, I thought you'd been going longer.
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  I didn't think you guys got like introduced to Delanco when you
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  were six or seven years old. So why do you believe Delanco
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  has been so instrumental in your parents life, your life and now
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  your kids life? Yeah.
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  So my family first got involved at Delanco right around the time
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  they were moving to Tabernacle from the town of Delanco.
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  And it was kind of a happening on both sides of my family, like
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  so my grandmother ended up as a counselor out there.
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  Oh, OK. For junior camp or something.
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  Not long after they moved to Tabernacle, started doing all
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  the youth camps and stuff. And so it was part of my dad's
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  life from that point forward. My mom and her older sister, I
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  think they went for the first time when my mom was going into
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  4th grade because their United Methodist Church was appointed a
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  pastor who was connected with the board of directors.
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  And so he and his wife got them, you know, out there and got them
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  connected. And so, you know, they, they
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  both grew up there. That's where they met.
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  And then when they were high school and middle school age and
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  that stuff, like they got involved with the youth group at
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  my dad's church, which had this big music program called the
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  King's Crusaders that would tour around and sing in places.
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  But The thing is, like, if you've ever been to Delanco, you
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  know, it's not got that much going on for it.
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  It's not one of those camps that has like the cool archery things
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  in the Big Lake with the BLOB and like all these things 4.
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  Pictures gave us all a taste. Yeah, sure.
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  It doesn't have a lot going on for except for the fact that
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  it's ground that's been consecrated to God and over the
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  years I think has been hallowed by his presence.
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  There are a few places I've been to in the world where where you,
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  you either step onto the grounds or you step into a building and
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  you say God's here. There's something different
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  about this space. And I feel that way about
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  Delanco. And I don't think it's just
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  because of my own personal experiences there, even though
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  I, I mentioned in my prayer like it's, it's where I met Jesus.
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  I was out there as a kid with my mom.
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  She was doing lifeguarding and that kind of stuff.
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  And and she drove us kids along with her and, you know, brought
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  a babysitter to watch us while she was doing what she needed to
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  do. And but so hearing one of the
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  presentations of one of the junior camps, I was like, I'm
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  ready to do that. It was when I was the summer
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  after maybe the 7th grade when it clicked in my mind and heart
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  that Jesus wanted all of me and He wanted me to follow when
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  things were good and when things were bad and everything in
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  between. It's where.
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  Is that where the when they sang the I surrender 10%?
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  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I surrender all.
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  Yeah. So that was that.
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  It's where I proposed to Meg and where we started having
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  conversations about Uganda and seminary and, you know, Congo
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  and all those kind of things. We talked to somebody who was
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  with WGM that summer and they took us out to dinner and talked
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  about possibilities, what that could look like and all that
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  kind of stuff. And so, and it's a place that
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  I've seen be that for so many others too.
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  You know, it's not just, it's not just that Delanco's somehow
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  special for me and Jesus, but that's why I've seen Delanco be
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  for a lot of people. Yeah, I've enjoyed the past few
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  years being involved there and. Had you been there before Josh
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  asked you to run the youth program at Family Camp?
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  Yes, OK. I I was the speaker Midler
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  before that and I ran a private Rich.
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  I I can't remember why I was there first, but the first time
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  I was there, it wasn't during camp season.
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  It was just me and the groundskeeper Wolfie, who was
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  there before Kenny and Brianna who who spoke on Sunday.
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  And it was giving me like a tour of the grounds and what they
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  had. And when I walked in the
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  Tabernacle, I was like, oh, God's used this place.
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  Yeah. Like he, like I could just sense
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  right away, like, Oh yeah, there's yeah.
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  It was just really powerful. And then to get to see that in
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  various ways throughout the years has been awesome.
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  And so if anyone's available to go to family camp this year.
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  Yeah, whether. And that doesn't mean you have
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  to go out for the whole, you know, seven days.
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  You can come out and visit for a service.
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  You come and visit for the day, go to Bible study in the
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  morning, hang out with people during the afternoon, you know,
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  during family camp. It's very open for visitors to
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  come. Yeah.
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  So you come out and that is through like June. 28 it's
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  actually. Yeah.
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  So highly recommend that for all ages, everyone.
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  And then after that it's for kids to high school ages.
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  After that for the rest of the Which?
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  But if you want to get a sense of what they're doing with the
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  kids, you're still able to go out during the week in the
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  evenings for the evening service.
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  Which is around 7. O'clock.
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  And Wednesday is the popular like visitors night where people
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  come and then you can get snacks afterwards and.
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  Sometimes. Sometimes all the snacks not
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  available, all the times of the visitors on Wednesdays.
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  Depends on the program director. I apologize for getting your
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  hopes up with snacks. Still worth going.
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  Yeah, it's not as much, but yeah, I'm I was glad for.
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  Yeah, it's kind of, it's one of those wild full circle things
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  for us because the summer of 2009, Meg and I were out there
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  for the whole summer as like the missionaries in residence, we're
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  doing our fundraising and all that kind of stuff.
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  And so usually they have somebody come in each week to
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  kind of help the kids learn about missions and, you know,
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  maybe be open to what God might call them into.
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  But we're out there the whole summer and Tim was 7-8 months
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  old and so he's Roly Poly baby. We're out there all summer.
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  Brianna was one of the lifeguards that summer.
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  And so to see her go from, you know, 16 year old Brianna
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  serving as a lifeguard to where she is today and to see Tim go
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  from that Roly Poly little baby to he just found out this
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  morning, it's going to be one of the lifeguards at Delanco this
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  summer. And so just kind of a neat full
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  circle and. She was one of the ones
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  interviewing him. She was like, you don't know me,
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  but I knew you when you were in diapers because they've been out
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  out West. And so, yeah, very much a
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  blessing. And when trying to, in my mind
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  connect that and your sermon, it makes me think of the stool, the
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  three legged stool that you're talking about.
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  Yeah. Of the three different sections,
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  who was the guy that created the?
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  Robert Clinton, who is a professor out at Fuller
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  Seminary. OK, who took the biblical list
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  of spiritual gifts and kind of put them in different sections,
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  which are power? Love, Love and word and word.
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  And I definitely got that on the first try.
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  And you're talking about how important all of them are.
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  And I don't think maybe everyone made the connections you were
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  making in regards to 'cause you were like, you can't just have,
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  I think it was social justice church or superpower gifts.
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  So charismatic, charismatic, or we know everything about the
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  Bible, but we're dry and not really doing any of the things.
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  And so maybe if we we could go through, I would say the
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  weaknesses of each just like the first, like top of the water.
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  Obviously every congregations is generalizations.
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  Sure. So much Gray area where they
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  could be leaning on either of those legs, but some weaknesses
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  if it was just focused on one of the legs.
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  Yeah. And then what do you think some
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  of the benefits are of being well balanced in all of those
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  areas, some of the potential benefits?
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  Sure. Should I start with our church
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  or end with our church? Didn't know we were going there
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  today but. I love it when I can fluster
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  you, Jeremy. That's rare.
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  Yeah. See what else the day will
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  bring. Start with our church.
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  All right, so I don't think I'd get too much pushback if when I
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  say that our church has been more comfortable with the word
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  gifts, right? And the word gifts are, I'm not
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  going to go through all of them, but things like teaching and
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  evangelism and shepherding, those kind of gifts,
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  encouragement, I would say most people in our church would say,
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  yeah, those, those are gifts that the Spirit gives people to
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  build up the church, to cast a vision for what God's doing to
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  lead us closer to him, right. However, if you take only those
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  gifts as gifts given by the Spirit, then you're missing
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  power gifts, right? And love gifts, but you're,
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  you're missing power gifts. You're missing things like
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  faith, things like intercession, which is is praying for other
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  people, specifically for things that you're believing that God
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  has said are going to happen. You're missing things like
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  healing and miracles and prophecy.
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  And there are a lot of people who say, well, yeah, because
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  those things don't exist anymore, right?
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  They stopped when when the Canon of Scripture was closed.
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  And so we just have to focus on the word and God will use that
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  to do whatever he wants to do. That's how he spoke and that's
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  how he's spoken. Which quick.
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  Hole in that theory is that there are many people in my life
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  that that hold that view and I'm always confused because they're
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  very strict and and focused on the word and the importance of
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  the word. And then I'm like.
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  But the word never says that. Where in the where in the Word
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  did it say that the gifts end starting now, like the very last
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  verse of the Bible? Everything you just saw in the
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  church done. Yeah, Well, probably wouldn't
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  happen earlier in Revelation, but anyway, sure.
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  I wanted you to touch on one because you gave like a couple
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  Cliff notes to give examples. And I know we're going to go way
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  deeper into these things later in the year.
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  But I think one that sticks out to many of people is when you
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  mentioned faith and that being a power gift.
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  And it's like, well, if I'm a believer, I have faith.
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  So what do you what do you mean that's a gift?
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  And then you're saying it's a gift that isn't super like was
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  super common or or whatever in this church maybe previously.
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  So could you, could you give a little bit about specifically
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  faith as a spiritual gift versus just happy?
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  Sure. Yeah.
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  So, So all of us have been given faith on some level, right?
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  That's what Ephesians 2 tells us.
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  It's by grace. We've been saved through faith,
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  and it's not of us. It's all of God so that none of
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  us can boast about it 100%. However, and this is similar to
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  the conversation we're having about the difference between
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  spiritual gifts and spiritual disciplines and how they're not
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  the same thing, right? So all of us have faith on some
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  level, but there are some people who have a gift of supernatural
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  Holy Spirit empowered faith that they're able to believe that God
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  said something and they're able to hold on to that until it
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  happens or till they die. Yeah.
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  And, and it's different than the faith I have, all right?
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  I have faith in Jesus. I have faith that God still
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  works. He still speaks, He's still
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  active, He still has a plan. He's moving all things towards
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  its ultimate purposes. But I also still struggle with
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  the discouragement and, you know, unbelief.
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  And there are times where like, alright, God, I think you said
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  this, but did you really? And myself following the right
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  thing. And so, but for people who have
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  the the spiritual gift of faith, they're like, alright, God said
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  it, we're gonna hang on to it. He's gonna do it.
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  And it gives them that I don't. Think there's no other option?
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  Yeah, when I see it, yeah. Yeah.
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  And so that, that's part of why I think the gift of faith and
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  the gift of intercession are closely tied together.
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  I, I wonder even if intercession isn't somehow a sub gift of the
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  gift of faith, but I'm still working that out.
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  So I left them as 2, two different gifts.
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  So that's where I think the, the spiritual gift of faith is
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  different from the common gift of faith that all of us receive.
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  Going back to your earlier question, though, the love gifts
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  are also important, right? If we don't have the power gifts
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  alongside the word gifts, then we're missing some of the, the
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  reality of God's presence in our midst, right?
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  We, we know it in a mental, intellectual kind of way that
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  God is with us. He's speaking through his Bible
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  to us, but his actual felt presence, his actual power in
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  our midst, we might say, oh wow, that that message was really
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  powerful. You know, God really spoke
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  through that message. But beyond that, not too much
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  with the love gifts. Love gifts are things like
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  giving and helps and mercy. That's where the love of God
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  really then gets expressed to people in real practical ways.
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  It's, you know, the people running in the food pantry and
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  the people who are going to serve in homeless shelters and
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  standing out at the abortion clinics talking to people.
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  It's, it's those kinds of gifts, the people who are willing to
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  show up and set up the tables and clean up after a potluck and
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  all those kind of things that that actually express the love
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  of God. And if we're missing those
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  things, we're actually missing a lot.
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  And we don't tend to think of those things as as specifically
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  being Holy Spirit empowered things, right?
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  We think this is just what every Christian's supposed to do.
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  And again, there is some truth to that.
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  There's, there's a common faithfulness that we're all
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  called to, to express these things.
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  But some people, and you're gonna hear that a lot, you know,
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  but some people have this, this deep joy that comes from serving
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  other people. It's not that they're doing it
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  out of obligation or because they know they're supposed to or
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  because it's the expectation they actually want to do it.
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  And they find great joy. And they find that over time as
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  God, you know, keeps working through them.
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  Or he's kind of connecting the dots like, oh, when I do this, I
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  feel different. Like I feel God's presence with
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  me. I feel God's power flowing
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  through me. They might not use quite those
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  words, but but those kind of ideas that, that, oh, there's,
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  there's something different when I act in these ways, when I do
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  these certain things. And so that's the Spirit, you
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  know, working through them, empowering them to do that
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  ministry. And that's different than people
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  like me or one of the one of the love gifts is administration,
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  which for some people you're like, that sounds terrible,
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  right? I don't want to be
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  supernaturally empowered to do administration.
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  But but when the Bible's talking about administration, they're
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  really talking about like a second chair leader.
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  The word that Paul uses there is actually used in other context
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  as the the helmsman of a ship. Do you know what a helmsman?
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  I know what a ship is. You know what a ship is.
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  And a ship has at the top of the hierarchy a captain, captain,
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  the captain says here's where we're going.
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  And. It's the first mate.
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  And the first mate, right? And then there's a helmsman
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  who's actually the one who steers the ship, who uses the
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  like the, the captain plots the course and the helmsman then
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  takes it and says, all right, I'm going to get us from here to
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  there. And so he's the one who's
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  actually steering the ship under the captain's commands.
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  Executive Pastors. Executive pastors.
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  So, yeah, so it's administrative pastors.
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  It's really great. Administrative assistants.
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  It's some people who thrive. They they don't want to be the
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  one up in front of people casting a vision for the church
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  or any of that. But they do great leading an
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  area of the church like the Finance Committee, and they make
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  sure that everything is going well there, that things are are
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  moving as they're supposed to be.
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  And they're very content to follow the lead of whoever the
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  leader is, you know, And so I have some aptitude in
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  administration. When I was at Trinity, that was
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  the role I filled. I was the one who made sure
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  everything happened when it was supposed to, where it was
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  supposed to, that rooms were available and set up and small
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  groups were being resourced and all that kind of stuff.
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  And so, and something that comes up, if I were to take a, a
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  spiritual gifts assessment, it's one of the things that comes up.
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  God's been pretty clear with me over the past, even the past
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  couple weeks that those abilities of administration and
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  me are natural gifts. It's not spiritual gifts.
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  So I'm able to do them. I can do it just fine.
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  I can operate. Eventually I start getting tired
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  of it, you know, because it's not, it's not an area where the
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  Spirit is empowering me. It's, it's my power.
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  And you can decide if you leave this in or not.
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  But one of the things God was saying to me while we were on
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  that at that conference a couple weeks ago, Megan, I was that
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  I've used those abilities, those talents and administration to to
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  seek validation or to to add value to kind of get affirmation
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  in my life when it like he wants to use them.
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  But there are other things that he's gifted me to do so, but
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  without those love gifts, getting back to the original
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  question, without those love gifts, we're not a very loving
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  church, right? We don't actually see the love
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  of God. We might know all the right
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  things, we might teach all the right things, but we're not
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  actually out there doing the right things.
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  And so we can't be a church that only embraces the word gifts as
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  important as they are, these other gifts are important too.
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  And they're just as spiritually given and spiritually empowered
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  as the word gifts that we're more comfortable with.
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  To flip it right. If you if you only focus on
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  those love gifts, right, you, you ignore the power gifts
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  because they seem a little too far out there.
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  We don't really want to hear from God today because we're
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  we're pretty sad what we believe we.
• 23:51
  Doing the loving part. We're busy doing the loving
• 23:53
  part, all that kind of stuff. Maybe you got some people who
• 23:57
  pray, but you know it's not quite the same.
• 24:00
  And if you ignore the word gifts, then suddenly you're no
• 24:05
  longer tethered to Scripture, you no longer tethered to what
• 24:10
  God has said, what he has taught us.
• 24:15
  And you make your gospel then all about how we meet the
• 24:19
  physical needs of people and how we show the love, even though
• 24:23
  we're not really calling them to.
• 24:26
  Because right, the word gifts, they clarify the nature, action
• 24:30
  and purposes of God. And without that, then we've got
• 24:33
  all these good, good works, but we're really no different than.
• 24:39
  Any other? Exactly.
• 24:43
  So if we was just on the power gifts, then we can really go off
• 24:47
  the rails. Again, I'm not saying that power
• 24:49
  gifts are bad, we need them in our church.
• 24:52
  But if we only seek the power gifts, if we only make space for
• 24:58
  the power gifts, then we're not doing any of that loving stuff,
• 25:04
  right? And we're, we're at risk that
• 25:08
  because we're not emphasizing the word gifts, we're at risk
• 25:12
  that we're, you know, slowly getting further and further away
• 25:16
  from what Scripture actually says and what God has LED us to.
• 25:20
  And we focus more on things like prophecy and words of knowledge
• 25:23
  that are new revelations. But we can't test those new
• 25:29
  revelations if we're not embracing the word gifts to.
• 25:33
  Yeah. And I think that's one of the
• 25:34
  things where, again, it's always such a Gray, not just, well,
• 25:40
  whatever. So like people with the love
• 25:44
  gifts would say, I think love and and power would say, well,
• 25:48
  we use Scripture all the time. We're in church scripture, you
• 25:51
  know, we talk about Scripture every week.
• 25:53
  But when you find that it's not looking at the full scope of
• 25:57
  Scripture. It's only the Scripture that's
• 25:59
  reinforcing the loving actions and that stuff or only the
• 26:05
  Scriptures that focus on the gifts and prophecy and that kind
• 26:08
  of stuff. Then it's like, yes, Scripture's
• 26:10
  involved, but it's not looking at all of not looking at the
• 26:15
  nature, action and purposes. And I think that's hard to do as
• 26:21
  a church can be uncomfortable to do as a church, but necessary to
• 26:24
  do as a church is to the best of our ability, allow God to lead
• 26:30
  us into all that he desires. And So what do you think some of
• 26:35
  the not literal detailed fruit maybe that that you anticipate
• 26:43
  to see, but what are some generalized areas that you think
• 26:48
  will positively shift if we're able to learn more into love and
• 26:54
  power gifts as a community, as individuals?
• 26:59
  Well, one, I, I think it's the only way we can be a healthy
• 27:02
  church, right? We, we don't want to be a, a
• 27:06
  disabled church that's missing part of our body.
• 27:11
  And what happens over time is that, you know, you get further
• 27:14
  and further into this and you then begin to lose the people
• 27:19
  who are gifted in the other ways, right?
• 27:20
  Because they don't feel like there's a place for them.
• 27:21
  And so then it just kind of reinforces this divide and who
• 27:26
  this congregation is. And so in our church, I, I would
• 27:29
  hope that as we seek to embrace all the gifts and all that God
• 27:35
  wants to do, all that the Spirit empowers us to do, it would
• 27:38
  actually then make us a healthy church, but also a more
• 27:42
  attractive church, right? Not that we just want to attract
• 27:45
  people to us, but that we would attract people to Jesus, right?
• 27:49
  And that people would say, oh, there's a place for me there.
• 27:54
  I'd love to see us get to a place where this really shapes
• 27:59
  the way we operate as a church, Right.
• 28:01
  And rather than sitting around in a nominations meeting and
• 28:05
  saying, we need a new, you know, trustee chair or something,
• 28:11
  yeah, we need a new trustee chair.
• 28:12
  Who, who's available, who could do it?
• 28:18
  We could look around at our congregation having had these
• 28:22
  conversations, having walked in some of these things we could
• 28:26
  say, all right, who's a gifted administrator who could lead our
• 28:34
  trustees? Well, you know who, you know,
• 28:37
  maybe it's a a mix of of the gifts of administration and
• 28:42
  helps are serving, you know, they're, they've got these
• 28:45
  gifts. And so they're gonna, they're
• 28:47
  gonna lead it well, they're gonna make sure it happens.
• 28:49
  Well, we can set them free to do it or, or maybe it's as we're
• 28:56
  looking at, you know, some of our paid ministry roles at
• 29:00
  different points. You know, we could say, oh, wow,
• 29:03
  we, we recognize a pastor Scott is gifted in certain areas.
• 29:11
  He's not so gifted in other areas, just like all of us.
• 29:15
  So as we we think about how we need to care for our
• 29:18
  congregation and lead our congregation well, who can we
• 29:22
  bring in who has spiritual gifts that complement and work
• 29:26
  together with rather than trying to find someone who, who
• 29:30
  reproduces the same gifts that Pastor Scott already has or
• 29:34
  Jeremy or Will or Aaron like on and on.
• 29:37
  But I'd love for gifts to become a, a primary lens that we see
• 29:45
  through. So that way it's not just about
• 29:48
  getting bodies into spaces, but it's getting people in the right
• 29:51
  places where the Holy Spirit can empower them.
• 29:55
  Because if, if we believe that these are gifts that the Spirit
• 29:58
  has given us and, and they're, they're places he's promised to
• 30:03
  empower us, if we're, you know, using them in surrender to the
• 30:09
  Father and for the purposes of God, then why wouldn't we want
• 30:14
  to get those people in the places where they can actually
• 30:17
  use those gifts to the glory of God?
• 30:20
  You know, just just think about whether like what it would look
• 30:23
  like if instead of somebody who can organize groups leading like
• 30:32
  a prayer ministry, we had someone who was actually gifted
• 30:38
  in intercession. You know, someone who who has
• 30:41
  the gift of faith and says, you know, God's told us this, we're
• 30:44
  going to hold on to him. We're going to pray for it and
• 30:47
  believe that's going to happen. I think it begins to then shift
• 30:51
  not just what you do, but how you do everything.
• 30:57
  Yeah. And I think part of that
• 30:59
  process, right, is that we are equipping and helping people to
• 31:04
  not only maybe discover or grow within their gifts, right?
• 31:09
  Creating. So we talked about in Sunday
• 31:10
  school class, like a place where people can practice, where we
• 31:13
  can try, learn, grow and potentially fail and continue to
• 31:17
  grow. But then afterwards it's not
• 31:21
  just, oh, it's official. They got this.
• 31:24
  Toss them in here. But like making because when you
• 31:26
  said set them free, it's like, yes, they will feel freer than
• 31:30
  almost anyone else in that thing.
• 31:32
  But also that we are as a body, as we're building rules of life,
• 31:36
  as we are things that we are committed to individually and as
• 31:40
  a collective, that they are rooted in a relationship with
• 31:45
  Jesus regularly. It's not I have the one thing
• 31:48
  and now I can go do, but it's like while in regular
• 31:52
  relationship, while working within the body to then do what
• 31:56
  God has empowered them to do. Yeah, because just like we saw
• 32:00
  with Jesus, right, He was gifted with certain gifts, but he went
• 32:06
  to the Father over and over again to get permission.
• 32:10
  Where are you leading me? Where are you taking me?
• 32:13
  What's the next thing? And so if Jesus had to do it, by
• 32:19
  all means we're going to need to do that too.
• 32:22
  Yeah, it's an exciting time. Exciting time.
• 32:26
  Well, that's our conversation for today, but that doesn't mean
• 32:29
  the conversation is over. We'd love to hear your thoughts
• 32:32
  on these topics as well. To ask a question about anything
• 32:35
  we've discussed in this episode or to join the conversation, you
• 32:38
  can head over to fumccollingswood.org/podcast.
• 32:43
  Thanks for being part of this conversation.