Last month I wrote about a new effort for our congregation to discover, develop and deploy our spiritual gifts.  Our tool for this is a Spiritual Needs Assessment.  Directions for how to complete this are below.  If you haven’t already done this, I urge you to by the end of the month.  There are 20 spiritual gifts we are looking at, with definitions, coming from the New Testament.  We want to know everyone’s gifts so we can organize our church and ministries using them, instead of focusing on things in which we don’t have as much passion or interest.

Another side of this effort is to gather the gifts and needs of Woodlawn.  This will be done is some formal and informal ways.  Dan Townsend is leading us in this part.  Soon you’ll have a chance to help with mapping our community and listening to as many neighbors as want to share their gifts and needs.

Then, later in the year, we’ll begin to connect our gifts with the gifts and needs of our neighborhood.  This will also be a positive in how we care for each other in the church.  We want to grow together and be outwardly focused.  Jesus clearly calls us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

During Lent we will have a focus on prayer.  There are many offerings to broaden our understanding of communication with God.  I encourage you to take advantage of these opportunities.  They will help as you are developing and using your spiritual gifts, and as we are looking for connections.

Check these out on the calendar.

Peace,

Emily