Document 2 treats each of the 18 gifts in depth. Document 3 (The Self-Assessment Guide) helps a believer discern which gifts they have. Document 4 (the Spiritual Gifts Assessment) captures the discerned gifts as data. This part gives the eldership a framework for reading that data with elder and deacon potential in mind — recognising that the office is constituted not by a single dominant gift but by a cluster of gifts working together.
2.1 Reading the Workbook Data with Eldership Potential in View
When the eldership reviews the body's aggregated gift data (Document 4 outputs, gathered in Stage 2 of the Annual Plan), three filters are useful:
Filter 1 — Cluster, not single gift. No single gift makes someone an elder or a deacon. The office is constituted by a combination of gifts working together. Look for clusters, not standalone strengths.
Filter 2 — Character markers in the workbook reflections. Document 3 invites reflection on shadow sides, fruit of the Spirit, and community confirmation. A candidate's honest engagement with the shadow-side questions is itself a marker of the spiritual maturity 1 Timothy 3 calls for.
Filter 3 — Confirmed in community, over time, by actual fruit. The workbook is discernment input, not divine pronouncement (Document 3's repeated framing). For potential elders and deacons in particular, the eldership should be looking for fruit that other members of the body have noticed independently of the workbook.
2.2 The Typical Elder Gift Cluster
In practice, faithful elders tend to combine several of the following from the eighteen gifts of Document 2:
- Pastoring / Shepherding — caring for the spiritual welfare of the flock, leading without lording, exemplified by John 21:15-17 and 1 Peter 5:1-4.
- Teaching — rightly handling the Word and instructing others (1 Timothy 3:2 — "able to teach"; Titus 1:9 — holding firmly to sound doctrine).
- Word of Wisdom — practical Spirit-given counsel in particular situations.
- Discernment of Spirits — recognising error, deception, and faithful direction.
- Administration / Leading — governance, ordering of the body's life, the proistēmi function of standing before and caring for.
- Exhortation / Encouragement — building up, calling forward, comforting the discouraged.
Not every elder will have all of these. The pattern is usually two to four of them combined, with character and family management as the indispensable substrate. An elder strong in teaching but weak in pastoring should be paired with an elder strong in pastoring; an elder strong in administration but weak in teaching should be paired with elders who carry the teaching weight. The team-of-elders pattern (Document 1, Chapter 6) exists precisely so that no single elder needs to embody every gift.
2.3 The Typical Deacon Gift Cluster
Faithful deacons tend to combine several of:
- Helps — practical assistance, often without recognition; the diakonos (servant) function.
- Mercy — compassion for the suffering, especially the sick, the poor, the widowed, and the imprisoned.
- Administration / Leading — as in elders, but oriented to the practical and operational layer rather than the doctrinal.
- Giving / Contributing — generosity and the steward's gift, frequently with practical understanding of how to provide for needs.
- Hospitality — welcoming, providing, table-setting in both literal and metaphorical senses.
- Faith — extraordinary trust that fuels practical action, particularly in the face of constraints (Acts 6 itself names "men full of the Spirit and of wisdom" — faith was clearly part of the cluster).
Again, no single gift makes a deacon. A faithful diaconate is a team of practical servants whose combined gifts cover the operational life of the body: care for the vulnerable, hospitality to newcomers, oversight of finance, organisation of programs, communication, logistics, and partnership with external ministries.
2.4 What Is NOT in the Profile
Equally important is what does not appear in the gift profile, even though many bodies treat them as primary indicators:
Not business success. Being effective in business is not in 1 Timothy 3 or Titus 1. It may indicate administration and stewardship gifts, but it is not the qualification. Many a body has appointed an elder for their corporate success and discovered, too late, that spiritual maturity had not kept pace.
Not charisma or platform presence. A compelling public speaker may or may not be an elder. The qualifications are character, doctrine, family, reputation — not the ability to hold a room.
Not age alone. Long-standing membership is not the qualification. Conversely, youth alone is not a disqualifier (Paul writing to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:12 — "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young"), though "not a recent convert" (1 Timothy 3:6) is a real constraint.
Not family name. Children of long-serving members are not by virtue of family entitled to the office. Each candidate is assessed on their own gifts and character.
Not willingness alone. Someone who volunteers to be considered may or may not be qualified. Willingness is necessary but not sufficient.
Not need alone. "We need elders, and they are willing" is not the same as "they are qualified". The temptation to lower the bar because the slot needs filling is one of the most damaging failure modes in the contemporary Western Church.
2.5 Calling-Aligned Shepherding
Beyond the cluster of gifts that constitutes an elder, a second pattern is worth naming explicitly. An elder with a particular passion and calling — for the poor, for evangelism, for inner healing, for the family, for the workplace, for the next generation — tends to shepherd most fruitfully the Saints in the body who share that same calling and gifting. This is not a strict rule, and the eldership as a whole still carries the whole body, but it is a pattern with strong biblical roots and significant pastoral fruit.
The biblical pattern. Acts 6 itself is the clearest case. The seven appointed to serve the Hellenistic widows were chosen partly because they could meet the specific need — most had Greek names (Stephen, Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, Nicolas), suggesting Hellenistic background and natural relational access to the Saints they were called to serve. Function matched to calling. Galatians 2:7-8 echoes the pattern: Peter is "entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised" and Paul "to the uncircumcised" — one apostolate, different spheres aligned to calling. Romans 12:6-8 and 1 Corinthians 12:11 ground the principle: gifts are given by the Spirit "as He determines", and the body operates rightly when each part functions according to its grace.
The practical pattern. In a mature body, an elder whose strongest gifting is mercy and whose heart burns for the poor naturally carries pastoral oversight of the body's engagement with the poor — and shepherds, more closely than the other elders, the Saints whose own gifting and calling lies in that same direction. An elder with deliverance and inner-healing gifting carries the cluster of Saints in that ministry. A teaching-strong elder leads the discipleship cluster. The other elders are not excluded from these areas — the eldership as a whole still shepherds the whole body — but each elder carries closer pastoral relationship with the Saints whose calling aligns most with theirs.
Why this works. A mercy-gifted elder will know what to ask of the mercy-gifted Saints they shepherd, will see the shadow-sides they need to be alert to, will pray prayers shaped by the same grace, and will be a more credible voice than an elder who carries that gift only in concept. Hebrews 13:17 says the elders "keep watch over your souls" — this requires actually knowing the souls. Calling-aligned shepherding makes that depth of knowing possible at scale.
A caution against drift to faction. Cluster shepherding must not become tribalism. The mercy-elder leading the mercy-cluster is still seated as one elder in a unified body, accountable to the same team of elders, holding the same doctrine, walking under the same Lord. The eldership is not a federation of sub-eldership cells; it is a team of elders with shared and personal responsibilities (as Part 7.3 sets out). Cluster shepherding is a way of dividing the work of pastoral care; it is not a way of dividing the work of governance. Doctrine, discipline, major direction, the appointment of leaders — these remain joint matters for the whole eldership.
Implication for the workbook data. When the eldership reviews the body's aggregated gift data (Document 4), it can usefully look not only at where the body's gifts cluster but at where the eldership's own gifts cluster — and where gaps exist. A body with strong mercy-gifted Saints but no mercy-gifted elder is under-shepherded in that area. The remedy may be to identify a new elder with that calling (Part 7.7 sets out when and how additional eldership is identified), or to recognise a deacon with that calling and resource them to lead the operational ministry while an existing elder provides pastoral oversight from above.