Turning away spiritual gifts

© 2016 Christy K Robinson

Many of us understand that ordination doesn’t confer privileges or gifts upon the man or woman being prayed for, but is instead a human recognition of God’s call and His gifts already bestowed to that person. 

 Maybe it was different with me. I’m not a professional pastor, but my gifts lie in music ministry, teaching, hospitality, compassion, and tongues (not that kind of tongues—written communications!). When I was ordained as an elder, God changed me. 

 

A few days ago at a party, I was speaking with friends, a young pastoral couple who will be ordained to ministry next week. They’re beautiful people, and they’re bursting with love for everyone in sight. I told them that there’s more to pastoral ordination than a pay raise or respect  of the church members—that the Lord will magnify His gifts to them, and they should prepare for dramatic changes in their lives. He will give them an authority they’ve not experienced before. 

 

In my experience, it didn’t happen at once, but the change was real. I became more confident of my skills, and they blossomed. I developed guidelines for writing a daily devotional book, solicited authors, and wrote more than a quarter of the year’s entries, as well as rewrote and edited the others. The book was published first by my employer, and later by Review & Herald. And then I wrote five more books!  (More books in the pipeline, too.)

 

I’d been a keyboardist for three decades for many denominations, playing mostly traditional and classical hymns and service music. But at my church in California, I played for a praise team at the early service, and “high church” for the later service, in addition to playing at other denominations nearby. I’m much more comfortable coming out from behind the big instruments I play, and connecting with other worshipers.

   

Over those years of Bible study and multiple church services on Saturdays and Sundays, I took notes in my study Bible. (The Presbyterian minister gave the best sermon about the Sabbath I’ve ever heard, and the female pastors in Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Adventist churches taught me more about compassion and practical everyday love than any male pastor did.) When my remarks or teaching in Bible classes receive compliments from visiting ministers, or my written words have made something clear to a PhD minister in the Assemblies of God, I confess that it feels really good to have come so far from my former church-mouse self, but recognize that my knowledge came from God-ordained pastors of several denominations. I use that background to better communicate with my readers. 

 

There have been other blessings to my life that are of a more personal nature than I want to share here, but they definitely date to my elder ordination in 2004. The pastor and all the church elders laid hands on my shoulders and head and prayed for God to bless me and use those gifts to build up the church. He has answered in abundance.

   

The refusal of some denominations to accept the gifts and call that God has bestowed on women is a tragedy not only for the women they snub, but for the congregations who won’t benefit from those gifts, the people who can’t or won’t participate in a church led by a man, and all the unchurched who are waiting for the ministry that would come from that godly woman. Conversely, think of the potential ready to burst forth from the as-yet-untapped resources of women who should be ordained elders and pastors.