Engineering APEST Gifts Doesn't Usually Work

The CMA APEST team has learned from experience that the APEST gifts are organically formed, not engineered by mortal humans. We have tried, more than once, to recruit and slot people into assignments based on their perceived gifts. This has rarely worked well for us. Occasionally it did, but rarely.

Simply having strengths that others need does not form a team. Humility and love toward one another are the glue that binds us together as we pursue mission together. Gifts do not bind us together. I would rather have a team that loved each other and was willing to defer and submit to one another, even if we lacked the right gifts, than to have a team with all the right gifts but no unity.

Focusing on your strengths actually divides us because we can easily devalue the strengths of others. We have found that when you focus on your weaknesses you become stronger because you begin to value everyone else's gifts. Let everyone else notice your strength, while you value the strengths of everyone else.

Jesus gives us the gifts; we do not scout for them and recruit them to our team. We do not scout for and hire the gifts. We do not suggest holding a spot open and searching for someone with the gift to plug in. Start with relationships, not gifts. On our CMA team, we were friends first and discovered our gifts later. We have found this makes for a far better approach.

Rather than looking for people with all the right gifts, we suggest you look for the qualities of Christ that the gifts represent and allow them to take root and grow. The difference between this approach and most spiritual gifts discovery systems is that the focus remains on Christ and what He brings to the table, rather than on the attributes of individuals. As Christ works in and through us, we believe the gifts will naturally emerge.

This series of blog posts are from my latest book Primal Fire.