Glamorous Gifts

Your Gift from God the Holy Spirit Matters (Book 1. This book is part of a 3 book series.) In Your Gift from God the Holy Spirit Matters, Charles takes the reader on a hunt to explore how the individual believer is granted a supernatural gift. He persuades and convinces the believer to discover his individual strategic gifting. He defines and illustrates the gifts and tackles the controversial. Charles says Ministry gifts were given to prepare the saints for the work of service and not to do the work of the ministry. He shows how Pentecostal Evangelicals, Charismatic Evangelicals and Traditional Evangelicals have been uniquely gifted and what must be discovered at the individual level according to the divine strategy of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Spiritual Gifts: Welcome to the church. (Book 2) In Spiritual Gifts: Welcome to the Church, Charles defines and describes each gift. He persuades the believer to connect with individual gifting, according to the will of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. He urges that every believer is entrusted with a gift that can be known and used to benefit many. Spiritual gifts: Church Under Siege (Book 3) In Spiritual gifts: Church Under Siege, Charles laments over how ministry gifts which were intended to prepare saints have been woefully neglected. He argues that believers are granted abilities and leaders are needed who are willing to invest in them. He moans that those with ministry gifts of the Lord Jesus Christ have behaved as if they are not committed to training individual believers. The Black pulpit has ignored the pews in the department of gift identification and developing. He pleads with the leaders as ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ to fulfil the number one functional dynamic in this life.

The word spirituality is notoriously difficult to define. It is often used in a vague way to refer to the inner relationship between the self and God. The implication is that people only relate to God with their “inner” being (soul/spirit) and not with any other part of who they are. There is a lurking influence of Neoplatonism within Christian thinking that tends to assume that the material is bad and the spiritual good, that there is a gaping hole between our inner and our outer selves and that the proper location of devotion is our inner being. There is a further assumption that, especially in the writings of Paul, the soul is to be placed in the “good” category while opposite it, in the “bad” category, is the body—leaving the question of what is meant by heart and mind largely ignored. Paula Gooder here explores the meaning of six key concepts in the Bible, especially in the writings of Paul, before moving on to explore what Paul intended by the contrasts he drew, and what implications this all has for the way we think and speak about our spirituality today.

Give Us This Day is a unique daily devotional commentary for the entire New Testament based on the ancient method called lectio divina. Lectio divina, or “divine reading,” is the method used by the early church and countless Christians through the centuries to read the Scriptures to form and transform the soul more than merely to inform the mind. Give Us This Day deals in depth with entire passages and their contexts. Rather than selecting only certain portions of the New Testament to write about, Fr. Charles has written a devotional for each and every passage of the New Testament. Fr. Charles writes for the whole person: he’s not afraid to use his sense of humor, and he carefully relates the Bible not only to the individual’s life but also to the life of the Church. At the end of each day’s devotional, an appropriate Prayer is offered, as well as Points for Further Reflection on the day’s lesson. Each devotional concludes with a suggested Resolution to put into effect what the Spirit has stirred up in the heart of the reader during the course of his reading, meditation, and prayer.

First Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Publisher description

How Spiritual Gifts Can Unleash the Power of Everybody! This practical guide for pastors and church leaders is newly edited and revised to include one powerful handbook of the best Team Ministry resources. It provides • Tools to help pastors and church leaders activate members’ gifts • Methods for developing volunteers and leaders in your church • Ways to use your members’ spiritual gifts to help your church grow • Questions and tools for teaching the nine team gifts in a small group or Sunday school setting (or use in a seminar). Team Ministry: Gifted to Serve is the perfect companion for ministry leaders who want to take their churches to new heights for God’s Kingdom.