Gifts of the Spirit

I joined 1st Presbyterian Church in 1985, and, within about 6 months, I was on Session, originally asked to be an alternate. As I recall, I was told at the time that no one ever resigned from the Session, so I wouldn’t have to do anything. Then, about a month later, someone was moving away; and I—largely ignorant of Presbyterian doctrine—was an Elder. God choosing to use me then was slightly terrifying, but apparently He knew what He was doing, even if I didn’t.
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Scott Fischer

I was immediately assigned to lead the Membership Committee, and it seemed to me that the largest responsibility was making coffee for coffee hour on Sunday morning between services.  So, one Sunday I started the brew in the large coffee pots and somehow got distracted after I’d turned the pots on and forgot to put the lid on one of them.  Off I went to do something else. When I came back a while later to check on things, I found a couple of elderly female members of our congregation aghast and staring at the ceiling as coffee intermittently spurted up like a geyser and ricocheted off the ceiling tile, creating a nice brown stain.  I rushed past them and quickly picked up the lid and slammed it down on the pot, grabbed a towel and started to clean things up as I escorted them out, probably saying something like “Show’s over; nothing to see here!”
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Thinking about this now, 37 years later, reminds me of the unique gifts and talents that we all have and how all of us offer a different gift to the overall body of the Church, as 1st Corinthians 12 so beautifully describes.
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1 Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed …. 4 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. 5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work ….
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Obviously, coffee-making may not have been a talent of mine at that time, but maybe God wanted to use me to learn, so I could serve in other ways in the future. He wants to challenge us to do what is out of our comfort zone to grow us in Christ.

Let’s all try to be open to His calls for us, even if we make fools of ourselves sometimes! After all, He does seem to have a great sense of humor!

In His Name,
​Scott