Unlocked: Resources

This fall we’re diving into what Scripture teaches about the spiritual gifts the Holy Spirit has given to every believer. God never designed His church to be a room full of spectators. Every follower of Jesus has been uniquely gifted and empowered to play a vital role in building up the body of Christ. Over these seven weeks, we’ll look at what Scripture teaches about each of the gifts, how they work together in a healthy church, and why love has to be at the center of it all. Our prayer is that every person at Pine Hills will discover how God has gifted them and begin using those gifts with confidence and humility, releasing what God has already given. Because in the end, we desire the gifts, but we pursue Jesus.

To help you go deeper throughout the series, this page is filled with resources: a reading plan with Scripture and daily reflections, a worship playlist for this season, book recommendations, and a complete guide to the spiritual gifts and what each one means. They’re all here to help you discover, develop, and put your gifts to work.

Reading Plan

Throughout the series, we’re reading through Scripture together as a church to get to know the Holy Spirit who empowers us. Over six weeks of daily readings, we’ll see how the Spirit lives in us, transforms us, gifts us, leads us, sends us, and fills us with love. Each day includes a short passage and a couple of reflection questions, so take your time with it. Slow down, take notes, write down prayers, and invite the Holy Spirit to lead you as you read.

Books

Looking to go deeper? We’ve put together an Amazon list of recommended books that offer helpful insight into the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts. Each one will build on what you’re hearing on Sundays and help you discover, develop, and use the gifts God has given you.

Spotify Playlist

Music shapes our minds and stirs our hearts. We’ve created a playlist of songs we’ll be singing throughout the series, each one inviting the Holy Spirit to move and reminding us that every good gift comes from Him.

Spiritual Gifts

Every believer has been uniquely gifted by the Holy Spirit to build up the body of Christ. Below you’ll find each gift with a short description and a practical look at how it might show up in everyday life. As you read through them, ask God to help you recognize how He’s gifted you and where He might be inviting you to serve.

FIND YOUR PLACE TO SERVE

Description:
Ability to start new churches and ministries and oversee their development.

Practical:
Pioneer and establish new ministries; adapt to different surroundings by being culturally sensitive and aware; the desire to minister to the unchurched and the unreached; demonstrate a vision for the mission of the church; tend to be entrepreneurial; leader of leaders and ministers of ministers; influencers.

Description:
Ability to organize people, time, and resources to effectively and efficiently execute ministry. Someone who guides and directs a group of people toward a goal or destination.

Practical:
Plan strategies to reach identified ministry goals, assist ministries to become more efficient and effective, coordinate or supervise a number of responsibilities to accomplish a task and tend to be organized, task-oriented, and efficient.

Description:
Ability to care for, nurture, and guide a group of believers toward spiritual maturity and Christlikeness.

Practical:
Establish trust and confidence through long-term relationships; model with their lives what it means to be a fully devoted follower of Christ; assume responsibility to nurture the whole person in their walk with God; tend to be loyal, kind, and sensitive.

Description:
Ability to successfully communicate the message of the gospel, especially to unbelievers.

Practical:
Sense opportunities to share Christ and lead people to respond in faith; adapt their presentation to connect with a person; find it natural to turn a conversation with an unbeliever to spiritual matters; tend to be personable, intentional, and approachable.

Description:
Ability to communicate vision, motivate, and direct people to work together to accomplish God’s purpose for the church.

Practical:
Provide direction to believers for ministry; motivate others to perform to the best of their abilities; paint the “big picture” for others to see; take responsibility and establish goals; tend to be visionaries, influencers, and result oriented.

Description:
Ability to educate individuals by clearly explaining and applying the Bible in a way that causes them to learn and act.

Practical:
Make Scriptural truths simple and easily understood; give attention to detail and accuracy; enjoys studying and researching Scripture; tend to be logical, insightful, and intellectual thinker.

Description:
Ability to make others, especially strangers, feel warmly welcomed, accepted, and comfortable.

Practical:
Provide an environment where people feel valued and cared for; create a safe and comfortable setting where relationships can develop; seek ways to connect people together into meaningful relationships; set people at ease in unfamiliar surroundings; tend to be selfless, approachable and relational.

Description:
An “in the moment” gifting of the Holy Spirit of knowing details about a situation at hand, the needs of a person, etc. This is “knowing” more than gathering information or human experience. Information through revelation vs. information through research of observation.

Practical:
Reception of truth or insight enables someone to better serve the body; gain knowledge not attained by natural means.

Description:
Ability to feel genuine empathy for individuals who are suffering or are in need; compassion moved to action.

Practical:
Focus on alleviating the source of pain in people; express love, grace, and dignity to those facing distress and crisis; tend to be problem solvers, sensitive, and compassionate.

Description:
Ability to recognize unmet needs and take the initiative to provide practical assistance quickly, cheerfully, and without a need for recognition.

Practical:
Work behind the scenes to support the gifts and ministries of others; sense God’s pleasure and purpose in doing everyday duties; tend to be sacrificial, empathetic, and compassionate.

Description:
An “in the moment” spontaneous ability to perceive God’s perspective and then apply that wisdom to specific situations.

Practical:
Provide divinely given solutions amid confusion and conflict; receive direction for God’s best in a given situation; apply spiritual truth in practical and specific ways; tend to be problem solvers, peacemakers, and insightful.

Description:
Ability to strengthen, comfort, or motivate into action those who are discouraged or wavering in their faith.

Practical:
Tend to be sensitive to how others are feeling, come alongside those feeling down to give them hope or confidence from God’s promises, others-centered.

Description:
Ability to act on God’s promises with confidence and unwavering belief in God’s ability to fulfill his purposes.

Practical:
Act in complete confidence of God’s ability to overcome obstacles; advance the cause of Christ because they go forward even when others will not; ask God for what is needed and trust Him for His provision and tend to be prayerful, optimistic, and dreamers.

Description:
Ability to contribute money and resources to the work of the Lord with cheerfulness and generosity, without the need to see them returned.

Practical:
Meet tangible needs that enable ministry to flourish; budget and limit their lifestyle to sacrificially give to advance the Kingdom; trust God for their provisions; aware of needs. Can sometimes make money easily.

Description:
Supernatural ability to speak in another language (one that is not a learned language).

Practical:
An utterance is given by the Spirit to edify the body of Christ or a personal Spirit-led prayer to God which edifies the user.

Description:
Ability to understand and communicate an otherwise unintelligible public utterance of tongues for the spiritual benefit of the body of Christ.

Practical:
Lines up with the gospel and points to Jesus, grounded in love and grace. It should be comforting, exhorting, or encouraging.

Description:
Ability to use God’s word in distinguishing between the spirit of evil vs. the Spirit of God, the flesh and the Spirit, and truth vs. error, before the fruit is evident. The wisdom to recognize truth from untruth by correctly evaluating whether certain behaviors or teachings are from God or another, ungodly source.

Practical:
Distinguish right vs. wrong, pure motives vs. impure; identify deception with accuracy and appropriateness; determine whether a word attributed from God is authentic; recognize inconsistencies in teaching, interpretation, or application; able to sense the presence of evil.

Description:
Ability to pray in faith for healing – physically, emotionally, mentally, and/or spiritually – and see God answer.

Practical:
Supernatural confidence that God will heal someone; sensitivity to when God is prompting them to pray this kind of prayer.

Description:
Ability to activate faith specifically for God’s supernatural intervention into an impossible situation and see God answer.

Practical:
Sensitivity to when God is prompting them to pray this kind of prayer; seeking God through intercession for a particular spiritual breakthrough.

Description:
Ability to communicate publicly or personally the mind and counsel of God by proclaiming His Word in a timely and relevant manner.

Practical:
Speak a timely word from God that causes conviction, repentance, encouragement, or comfort; see truth that others fail to see; tend to be perceptive, confident, and bold.