Discernment without action is incomplete. The point of this whole exercise is not to know yourself better, but to serve Christ’s body more fruitfully. This section is where you turn what you have learned into concrete next steps.
Mapping gifts to good works and to ministries
This table shows how each gift typically connects back to the good works of the New Testament and to specific ministries in church and ordinary life.
| Gift | NT good works it serves | Practical ministries |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Mercy | Care for the vulnerable; bearing one another’s burdens | Hospital and prison visiting; care of the dying; bereavement ministries; counselling and lay-pastoral care; chaplaincy; ministry to the poor, addicted, abused, or marginalised; volunteering with refugees, the disabled, or the chronically ill. |
| 2. Healing | Care for the vulnerable | Prayer ministry teams; visiting the sick at home or in hospital; healing prayer in church services; intercessory prayer ministries; medical mission; ministries that combine prayer with practical care for the body. |
| 3. Helps | Bearing one another’s burdens; honest labour | Setting up and packing down for services and events; meal trains; building and maintenance teams; transportation for those who cannot drive; childcare so other parents can rest; administrative support; technical and AV ministries. |
| 4. Giving / Contributing | Generosity | Generous personal giving (often quietly); supporting missionaries; funding new ministries; deacons’ funds for the poor; sponsoring children, students, or pastors; underwriting works that no one else will fund. |
| 5. Hospitality | Hospitality | Hosting newcomers and visitors; small group hosting; welcoming international students or those new to the country; opening home to those in transition or crisis; meal hospitality for the lonely; foster care. |
| 6. Administration / Leading | Bearing one another’s burdens (community life) | Church wardens, treasurers, secretaries, and administrators; ministry team leadership; running events and conferences; project management for church initiatives; eldership and oversight; leading a small group or class. |
| 7. Exhortation / Encouragement | Bearing one another’s burdens | Counselling and lay-pastoral conversation; small group facilitation; mentoring; written ministries (letters, encouragement notes, blogs); speaking ministries focused on encouragement; ministries to the discouraged or burnt-out. |
| 8. Teaching | Bearing one another’s burdens; witness | Sunday school teaching; small group leadership; preaching (where called and authorised); writing; theological education; catechesis; new believers’ classes; one-to-one disciple-making. |
| 9. Pastoring / Shepherding | Bearing one another’s burdens | Eldership; small group leadership over time; mentoring of young believers; ministry to families, marriages, or particular age groups; chaplaincy; pastoral care teams. |
| 10. Word of Wisdom | Bearing one another’s burdens | Counselling; eldership; intercessory ministry; serving as a sounding board for leaders; conflict resolution; spiritual direction; ministries requiring discernment in complex situations. |
| 11. Word of Knowledge | Bearing one another’s burdens | Prayer ministry; intercession; counselling and pastoral care (where the Spirit gives illuminating insight); evangelism (where insight opens hearts); careful, accountable use within a church team. |
| 12. Discernment of Spirits | Inner character; bearing one another’s burdens | Eldership; counselling those involved in occult or false-teaching backgrounds; ministry team participation in evaluating teachings, movements, or practices; cross-cultural mission where animism or spiritism is present; pastoral care. |
| 13. Apostleship | Witness and proclamation | Church planting; pioneer mission to unreached peoples; founding new ministries, schools, or movements; cross-cultural mission; revitalising dying churches; entrepreneurial gospel work. |
| 14. Evangelism | Witness and proclamation | Personal evangelism; ministries among unbelievers (workplace, community, sports clubs, neighbourhoods); evangelistic preaching and writing; running courses for seekers (Alpha, Christianity Explored, etc.); university and youth ministry. |
| 15. Prophecy | Bearing one another’s burdens; witness | Prophetic prayer and ministry teams; preaching that calls the church to God’s heart in a particular season; counselling under church oversight; written and spoken ministries that name what God is doing or warning against. |
| 16. Tongues and Interpretation | Inner character (private); bearing one another’s burdens (public, with interpretation) | Private prayer and devotion; participation in gatherings where this gift is used (with biblical order); intercession; submission to 1 Corinthians 14 in any public exercise. |
| 17. Faith | All works (sustaining) | Pioneer ministries; intercession; ministries to the impossible (closed countries, hardened cases, long-running situations); serving alongside others in moments where their faith falters; financial faith ventures; revival prayer. |
| 18. Miracles / Workings of Powers | Witness; care for the vulnerable | Pioneer mission (especially in cultures with strong demonic, animistic, or magical realities); healing ministries that include unusual cases; deliverance ministries; intercessory prayer ministries; ministry to the very poor and desperate. |
Your concrete next steps
For each of your top three gift areas, name a specific concrete step:
Gift area 1: ___________________________
Is this an “established” gift, or a “dormant — fan into flame” gift? (Circle one.)
Established / Established but plateaued / Dormant — fan into flame
If established: Where am I currently serving in this area? Where could I serve more deeply?
If dormant: Where could I take a first step into this area, with mentoring or oversight?
What is one concrete step I will take in the next two weeks?
Who will I tell, so they can pray for me and hold me to it?
Gift area 2: ___________________________
Is this an “established” gift, or a “dormant — fan into flame” gift? (Circle one.)
Established / Established but plateaued / Dormant — fan into flame
If established: Where am I currently serving in this area? Where could I serve more deeply?
If dormant: Where could I take a first step into this area, with mentoring or oversight?
What is one concrete step I will take in the next two weeks?
Who will I tell, so they can pray for me and hold me to it?
Gift area 3: ___________________________
Is this an “established” gift, or a “dormant — fan into flame” gift? (Circle one.)
Established / Established but plateaued / Dormant — fan into flame
If established: Where am I currently serving in this area? Where could I serve more deeply?
If dormant: Where could I take a first step into this area, with mentoring or oversight?
What is one concrete step I will take in the next two weeks?
Who will I tell, so they can pray for me and hold me to it?
But do not move without His Presence
You have named your gifts, and you have named your next steps. Before you take a single one of them, there is a posture to settle in your heart — because it is possible to know your calling and still move wrongly, by moving ahead of God.
When Israel had sinned at the foot of Sinai, God told Moses to lead the people onward to the land He had promised — but warned that His own Presence would not go up in their midst. On paper it was everything Moses had asked for: the destination, the inheritance, the mission, an angel to drive out the enemy. And Moses refused it.
Exodus 33:15 — “Then he said to Him, ‘If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here.’”
He would not take the calling without the Caller. Better to stay in the wilderness with God than to walk into the promise without Him. And the Lord answered him:
Exodus 33:14 — “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
Let this be the prayer of your own heart as you step toward the works in front of you: Lord, I want to move into the very places You have called me — the good works You prepared beforehand for me to walk in — but not one step ahead of You.
Ephesians 2:10 — “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
So do not rush. Stay in prayer, with an expectant heart. Watch for the peace of God to settle on what is resonating — that quiet, ruling rest is one of the ways He leads.
Colossians 3:15 — “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.”
Where His peace rests on a step, take it in confidence. Where it does not, wait, and keep asking; the door He has prepared will not close on the one who is seeking Him. The gifts are His, the works are prepared, and the God who calls you will Himself go with you.
Toward the elders’ confirmation and laying on of hands
If, after working through this assessment and receiving the community confirmations from Part Eight, your discernment is converging — in your own heart, in your spouse, in your trusted believers — the proper next step is to bring this to your church’s elders. Acts 13:1–3 names the pattern: the Spirit calls; the church confirms; the leaders fast, pray, lay on hands, and release the believer into the work prepared. This is the biblical order, and it is honoured of the Lord.
Practically: ask your pastor or an elder for a meeting. Bring this assessment, the community confirmations, and your own prayerful reflections. Ask them to weigh what God may be doing, to test your discernment against scripture and against their knowledge of you, and — where they discern it appropriate — to pray for you and lay hands on you, releasing you into the gifts and works to which Christ has called you. This is not for everyone at the same moment, and not every gift requires a formal commissioning. But where God is clearly stirring you toward a particular work, do not skip this step. The blessing of the church’s leaders is itself a means of grace.
A note for those who have only just begun
If this has been your first serious thought about your spiritual gifts, do not be discouraged if your scores are modest across the board, or if you are not yet sure about anything. Gifts are recognised in the doing. Begin to serve — in any of the good works of the New Testament — and watch what God does. Many believers discover their gifts only after years of faithful service in less obvious places.
Joshua’s declaration is a place to land: “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15). The point is to serve. The Spirit will sort out the gifts as He goes.
Not sure where your calling fits? Go deeper here.
If your gifts or calling are not yet obvious — or you simply want to develop them further — this is the place to keep going. Within your free membership you can return to your discernment over time. And where your elders and church are members too, your discernment can connect into your church’s annual planning process, where the eldership reviews the gaps and needs across the church and the wider community and helps match callings to the works that are waiting. Calling is often clarified not in isolation, but together, as the whole body plans its mission.
You can also track and manage every concrete step in your Action Tracker — the task, a date, who is holding you to it, and where it is up to — so nothing you have discerned here quietly slips.
And when you are ready to commit, you can consolidate and confirm it in a Ministry Works Agreement — a voluntary, joint, and clear articulation of what you will do, with what time and resources, and in what working relationships. It brings clarity and keeps expectations honest on every side, so the work is ordered, coordinated, and fruitful.