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Shaping Your Personal Ministry Plan
The spiritual transformation from casual to complete Christian.
Dr. James B. Scott, Dr. Molly Davis Scott

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Identifying effective aspects of yourself and your own inclinations helps to jumpstart you in creating a Personal Ministry Plan. Consider the following 14 elements when preparing for your Personal Ministry Plan.

The nature of your calling
Your spiritual gifts
Your natural abilities
Your values, what is important to you
What makes you cry or where you have had pain
Your interests, the desires of your heart
What energizes you
Affirmations from other people
What you were doing when you were your happiest
Where you have had a history of success
Consistent feedback from others
Feedback from identification instruments
Who you want to spend time with
What God is saying to your heart in your devotions

You may think of other particulars to add as you work with it. The idea is to help you back off of your immediate situation and see yourself from a longer and broader perspective. You are going to identify patterns in your life as you make notes on these areas. When we did this for ourselves, we saw patterns going back into early childhood and continuing through elementary school, high school, college, young adulthood into our prime working years. We saw patterns of leadership, independence, creativity, communication abilities, and being encouragers. We knew that we are very much alike, but saw the reasons why we are alike when we compared the elements of our upbringing, natural abilities, interests, and spiritual gifts.

Use these explanations as an aid through your own chart, Elements of Discerning My Ministry, found at the end of this article:

1) The nature of your calling

The manner in which your calling came will often give direction to your future ministry. For example, someone who was not raised in the Church and meets Christ in adulthood often has a heart for the unsaved and therefore that person's ministry is highly evangelistic. Someone who was saved via the efforts of a movement might have a call to make the church more understandable to people. A person brought to Christ via a 12-step program might desire to see the church more involved with social issues. Reflect back on your calling and discern whether there are clues about where you may want to serve. Did you feel that you received insight from Jesus at the time of your call?

2) Your spiritual gifts

A number of different inventories are available to help you understand your spiritual gifts.3 Your spiritual gifts will be indicators to the focus of your ministry. Spiritual gifts are listed in I Corinthians 12, Romans 12 and Ephesians 4. A quick reference: wisdom, knowledge, working of miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, different kinds of tongues, interpretation of tongues, ministry/pastoring, teaching, exhortation, giving, leadership, mercy, apostleship, evangelism … all for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry and for the edifying the Body of Christ.

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Topics:	Calling, Discipleship, Passion, Planning, Spiritual care, Spiritual formation, Spiritual gifts, Spiritual growth, Spiritual leadership, Vision
Filters:	Church staff, Counseling, Discipleship, Pastor, Pastoral care, Shepherd, Spiritual director
References:	Romans 12 , 1 Corinthians 12 , Ephesians 4