Heb. 2:4 (NEB) God added his testimony by signs, by miracles, by manifold works of power, and by distributing the gifts of the Holy Spirit at his own will.TEACHER / PARTICIPANT INSTRUCTIONS
Following this letter of introduction, you will find a link to download the "Spiritual Gifts Inventory" in MS WORD format.
The test itself is meant to be printed out and filled in. But the first few pages of introductory scriptures can be read online.
When printed, if kept in TIMES-font, size 10, it should paginate correctly to 7 full printed pages plus an 8th key page. These should then be copied onto 4 pages front and back. And here is the important bit: page 8 should be turned upside down when you make the copies so that when page 7 is folded after the test is taken (where it says to) the key will be revealed properly. You will get the idea once you print it out.
The test is so constructed that even if a few questions are misunderstood it should still be accurate as a whole. The idea is not to compare results with others, but to get relative rankings for each individual. Thus, any proclivities toward bias should not matter.
If this is used in a group setting, it is important to tell participants in advance that the results will NOT be shared in any formal exercise. What I have done in the past is tell groups that if a person wants to share the results with someone, that is OK, but there will be no pressure to do so after the test (no "exchange papers now!") nor should anyone be nosy about anyone else's results. This keeps people more honest with God, rather then thinking about what someone else will or might think.
Next is a letter (that we originally sent out to the initial reviewers) that describes our motive and the utility using a test format to discover spiritual gifts.
Rom 1:11 (NIV) I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong.
INTRODUCTORY LETTER
Here is the "Spiritual Gifts Inventory".
I must admit that in general I'm not real keen on tests like this, because I suspect that--at their best--they only tell us what we already know. "So why bother?" You might ask. Well, perhaps because, when correct, they allow us an opportunity to focus our thoughts for a time concerning this subject and to have confidence in the conclusions.
The problem, of course, is if and when they tell us anything novel, which is probably incorrect, and thus we might end up with confidence in a false conclusion. This is much like the effect of a palm reader, no? Only it appears so Scientific!
So, with this in view, I set out to construct a test. The objective was to tell the participant what he/she already suspects is true, and I pray that it does not show up anything novel. The test format merely provides the external discipline to think these things through.
Another point of explanation about the study is that I do not think that a test format is particularly good to discern gifts. You may ask "Well what do you think is the best way to discover spiritual gifts?" My opinion is that gifts are to be confirmed by others, by "two or three witnesses"--if you will, and not merely by self assessment.
"So, Dean", you might ask, "If you don't like tests in general, and you think them a poor application to gifts in particular, why did you prepare the Spiritual Gifts Inventory?" Well, if you will stop interrupting me I will explain.
The problem is that gifts can be confirmed by others only after they have been exercised. And for many, gifts are laying dormant. You won't have something confirmed by others if you don't know you can, or should, serve the body in a particular way; or if you are fearful of stepping out in faith because of doubt. The objective of this inventory is to give people confidence, through the test, that they can, and should exercise their spiritual gifts. So, this study is basically... a sophisticated kick in the pants.
Assuming most Christians know their primary gifting, the real focus then is to get people moving on dormant gifts 2-5.
"So why not use one of the various published tests for this?" Well, since you asked, I found them all inadequate, some a dismal waste of time. The best I came across was Kenneth Cain Kinghorn's "Discovering your Spiritual Gifts", but even it had two flaws in my review, one slight and one major. Yes, I will explain.
In college I worked for a market research firm, where I learned to structure tests such as this--with "honesty checks", asking questions positively and negatively, etc., and Kinghorn was one of the few who understood the science of this. His test was very well constructed, but long! This was the slight, or minor problem. After 200 random questions and 90 minutes of his test, I actually gave up and never calculated the answers! Thus, our version provides a statistically significant sample size without (it is hoped) exhausting the participant. The questions also are grouped by topic towards the end, which breaks up the monotony. That this reveals more of the "key" has little effect this late in the game.
As an aside, I think it best to give the test publicly, where a leader paces the group by reading each question aloud, and then waiting 10-15 seconds for participants to write in their response, and then going on. Thus the full test would take about 45 minutes.
The more serious problem was that Kinghorn, like most, conflates spiritual gifts with Psychological tendencies. Questions and definitions in his test were thus "laced". So we used some of his definitions (when correct) and basic test order, and selections from his questions where he was focusing on "spiritual gifts" and not natural inclinations (which may be diametrically opposed) and wrote the rest ourselves, condensing the test structure into fewer questions at the same time.
All this was integrated with several sources, noteworthy of which was Anthony Jordan's Spiritual Gift's Outline. What emerged should not be blamed on anyone but me, but I did wish to give credit to major sources of material and format. My principle co-laborer in this effort was Gary Nelsen, of Dallas, TX, who has a complementary gift-set to my own.
Given how much we borrowed from K.C. Kinghorn it is only fair that we plug his test, even though we think it has the problems noted above. Still, it is a good test which will likely yield the same results, and is in a nicely packaged format as well. It can be ordered from amazon.com for only about 5 dollars.
In any case, with this long-winded introduction, I hereby submit the "Gifts Inventory" Bible Study for your review and edification.
Remember, our goal is modest: to confirm, clarity, and encourage--not to generate something novel. So, if the results of this test come out that you have the gift of "winning the lottery", I will be quite concerned, you can be sure.
May we all grow in the gifts [charisma] of grace [charis]!
Eph. 4:8 (NIV) This is why it says: "When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men."
DOWNLOAD THE TEST
To download the Acts 17:11 "Spiritual Gifts Inventory", click on the link below:
DOWNLOAD: "spiritual_gifts_inventory.rtf" In most browsers, the document will appear on your screen. If it does not just appear, look to the bottom left of your browser and open the file. Or follow the pop-up windows to SAVE FILE to your disk if this has not been done automatically; then FIND "giftsinv.rtf" in your download folder using Microsoft WORD or other word processor. Then, print it out and you are on your way.For a table of where each gifts is mentioned in scripture, and a brief definition for every gift, go to the Concise Dictionary page. The information on this page is excerpted from, and a subset of, the Spiritual Gifts Inventory, above.
Please let us know if the "Spiritual Gift Inventory" is useful, and if you have any comments, corrections, questions, or insights.
Cordially,
Dean & Laura VanDruff
