Saturday, August 02, 2008

How the "Competition" strength can be used in life and ministry

I had another good Strengths and Spiritual gifts session this morning with a great young married couple, Chris and Christy. Chris and Christy are one of the couples that we first got together with at High POinte, and we have kids that are similar in age, so we have always felt a good connection with them.

As usual, there were many things that we were able to confirm that they were already doing in their lives with their Strengths and Spiritual gifts. And we were also able to identify some possible new areas of service, such as Habitat for Humanity, help with benevolenve, raising giving for meaningful works, and more.

One interesting Strength that was identified in the session is Competition. Those with this strength like to measure their performance in comparitive terms and want to "win." I remember my professor, Reggie McNeal, at Fuller explaining this Strength. He noted that we are in competition with Satan, that we can compete against ourselves, and that a healthy competition with others can help us spur one another on to love and good works.

When you combine Competition with say, Achiever, goals and "winning" become extremely important. What this means is that someone with these Strengths will want to serve in ways where there is measurable progress, and where the ministry is always increasing. So for instance, in giving, increasing the goals of giving is much for exciting than just making numbers add up to meet a budget.

Even mundane tasks can become more fun for those with a Competition strength if they are made into a contest. Like, who can complete the most household chores or who can do it the fastest.

Each of us is made uniquely by God, and it is important for us to frame different ministries or actions in the way that best motivates us. It is the task of church leaders to help others reframe and motive them for ministry.

How else can a "Competition" strength be used in a positive way in life and ministry?

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