Shaped for Service and Significance: message #2 in the series Discovering my S.H.A.P.E. for Ministry

What are the goals of this series?

1. To allow the Bible to form and re-form our understanding and practices relate to ministry.
2. That every Ingleside member will discover their unique, God-given design (S.H.A.P.E.) for ministry.
3. That every Ingleside member will actually begin or resume serving in the ministry of our church that best expresses what God has made them to be and do.

Our goal is every member a minister!

MINISTRY  =  

In the body of Christ, not everyone is a pastor, but everyone should be a minister!

1. Since before I was born, God has been me for ministry.

 Your hands shaped me and made me. . . . Remember that you molded me like clay. (Job 10:8, 9, NIV84)

¹³  For you formed my inward parts;
          you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴  I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
          Wonderful are your works;
          my soul knows it very well.
¹⁵  My frame was not hidden from you,
          when I was being made in secret,
          intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶  Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
          in your book were written, every one of them,
          the days that were formed for me,
          when as yet there was none of them.
          (Psalm 139:13-16, ESV)

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
          and before you were born I consecrated you;
          I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
          (Jeremiah 1:5, ESV)

2. While every person is created in the image of God, not everyone is shaped in the way.

3. How God has shaped me will determine where I will serve most effectively and most in ministry in the body of Christ.

 In ministry, function follows form!

4. Five parts of my God-given shape are . . .

S 

⁴ For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, ⁵ so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. ⁶ Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; ⁷ if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; ⁸ the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. (Romans 12:4-8, ESV)

 Key question:  what has God gifted me to do?

H

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4, ESV)

 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9, ESV)

 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. (Ezekiel 36:26-27, ESV)

 And I told no one what my God had put into my heart to do for Jerusalem. (Nehemiah 2:12b, ESV)

 Key questions:  what am I about?  What do I to do?

A

The Lord said to Moses, ² “See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, ³ and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, ⁴ to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, ⁵ in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft. ⁶ And behold, I have appointed with him Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan. And I have given to all able men ability, that they may make all that I have commanded you: (Exodus 31:1-6, ESV)

Key questions:  what natural and aptitudes has God given me?  What am I  naturally at?

 P

Key question:  where does my temperament best suit me to serve?

E

• What educational experiences have I had?
• What employment experiences have I had?
• What experiences have I had?

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. (2 Corinthians 1:3-4, ESV)

• What previous ministry experiences have I had?