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Spiritual Gifts in Student Language

By Doug Franklin November 8, 2019

Students and Spiritual gifts

Students have a favorite subject, and it’s themselves. Spiritual gifts appeal to students because they love learning about themselves. But the problem is they tend to think that spiritual gifts are all about them. The truth is, the Holy Spirit gave us gifts so that we could give them away to our community and faith. We need to make sure that students never think about spiritual gifts as “what did I get.” Instead, we need to teach that their gifts create a glue in a faith community that gives everyone the value.

It’s such a beautiful picture of how the church works, each person gifted by the Holy Spirit, to give an important gift away to the rest of the church. Making everyone special, giving everyone an important role to play in the church.

So it’s important that our students not only know what their spiritual gift is, but that they need to know how to use it and how important it is to the church that they constantly be using their gift amongst their community of faith.

inventory tool for spiritual gifts

So let’s stop giving students spiritual gift inventories unless we are willing to teach them how, when, and where to use their gifts in the church.  This is what I love about the LeaderTreks’ discover your spiritual gift inventory tool. This tool doesn’t just let students know what their gifts are, it actually teaches them how to use their gift on the team, where they can find their gift in scripture, examples of their gift in scripture, and pitfalls of over-using their gift.

It all starts with putting the spiritual gifts lists we find in scripture into students language. It’s also important to note that we teach students spiritual gifts that they can actually encounter at their age and at their maturity level. So we’ve made a list of the spiritual gifts that we think students will have. We put this list into students’ language so that they can better understand what their gift is all about. We have also put our list into action tense, so that students will understand how their gifts can be used.

Spiritual gifts language: Adult Vs. Student

Adult Language for Spiritual Gifts
1. Faith
2. Mercy
3. Leadership
4. Discernment
5. Evangelism
6. Contributing
7. Knowledge
8. Pastor/Shepherding
9. Administration
10. Apostleship
11. Wisdom
12. Prophet
13. Helper
14. Teacher
Student Language for Spiritual Gifts 
1. Believing
2. Comforting
3. Directing
4. Discerning
5. Evangelizing
6. Giving
7. Learning
8. Mentoring
9. Organizing
10. Pioneering
11. Problem-solving
12. Speaking-out
13. Supporting
14. Teaching

spiritual gifts list language for students

LAST THOUGHTS

My prayer is that you will teach your students about their gifts and how to give them away to their church. I believe that students are dying to understand how they are unique and special. Jesus understood this and he provided a way for them to be really unique and special. Help students understand their value to the church by teaching them how when and where to use their spiritual gifts.

About the Author

Doug Franklin

Doug Franklin is the president of LeaderTreks, an innovative leadership development organization focusing on students and youth workers. Doug and his wife, Angie, live in West Chicago, Illinois. They don’t have any kids, but they have 2 dogs that think they are children. Diesel and Penelope are Weimaraners  who never leave their side. Doug grew up in…  Read More