Unwrap Your Special. Unleash Your Potential.

What is SPECIAL?

 “Deep in our hearts, we all want to find and fulfill a purpose bigger than ourselves. Only such a larger purpose can inspire us to heights we know we could never reach on our own. For each of us the real purpose is personal and passionate: to know what we are here to do, and why.” -OS Guinness

SPECIAL is an acrostic that covers the seven gifts that we are given to us as part of our unique design. The seven gifts are as followed:

Spiritual Gifts:  God-given abilities that are given to you to share His love and serve others through the Holy Spirit. Every Christian has at least one spiritual gift.

Personality: The way you navigate through life by relating to others and opportunities.

Experiences: All of the parts of your past, both painful and positive, that makeup the person you are today.

Calling:  The Answer to “What is the Meaning of my Life?” Everyone has a specific purpose that only they can carry out. This is the central point of SPECIAL and the core of your existence.

Interests: What you enjoy doing and what your hobbies consist of. These are things that grab your attention and your time.

Abilities:  Your set of talents that God has given you to use to make an impact for Him and Others.

Longings: The passions that God has given you so you can glorify Him on earth.

We will be unwrapping your SPECIAL gifts starting in May starting with our identity. We’ll next look into obtaining a vision of excellence, examining our past, enriching our lives to the fullest, entering our future with anticipation and enthusiasm, and our calling that God has given us.  Then we will address the different aspects of your SPECIAL design: spiritual gifts, abilities, personality, experiences, interests, longings, your work, ambitions and desires, and serving your church and community. Some of my resources I will be using are S.H.A.P.E. by Erik Rees, Discover Who You Are by Jane Kise/David Stark, Life on Purpose by Art Sepulveda, The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, The Me I Want to Be by John Ortberg, The Call by OS Guinness, Live Your Calling by Kevin Brennfleck, Conformed to His Image by Kenneth Boa, Culture Making by Andy Crouch and Only You Can Be You by Erik Rees.

My blogs starting in April will directly correspond to SPECIAL and will run through October. The Blogs/Home section will be an introduction to all the objectives of SPECIAL and gifts that are part of our unique design. The Manual will be a place for more in-depth study on the diferent topics that aren’t covered in the blogs. SPECIAL will be a place of personal application where you can find questions, examples, sites to visit, lists of personalities, abilities, interests, passions, etc., and much more! In the future, SPECIAL, will serve has an entire separate ministry/website part of SHOUT IT Ministries that helps Christians find their passions, purpose, and calling for their lives. For now this site is a long introduction of all SPECIAL will bring in the future—-Prepare for the discovery of a lifetime!!

The Seven Objectives of SPECIAL:

1. Establish Your Identity to Engage:  Who are we? Are we unique? Does God really love us? These are just some of the questions that are addressed and answered in the SPECIAL Ministry. Our identity is by far our most important asset without it, we can’t function correctly, work properly,  or love others effectively. Also we’ll look at surrendering to God’s will and learning to trust Him with our lives.

2. Embrace Your Calling With Enthusiasm: What does God want from me? Why do I exist? What’s the purpose of my life? Your Calling is the core of your being. There are two different callings we will look at: your primary calling and your secondary calling. Plus we’ll discover who the “caller” is and the proper way to look at the term “calling.”

3. Enlarge Your Vision to Excellence: How do I acquire the correct vision? How does my attitudes and thoughts affect my life? What does it mean to think Godly thoughts? Often overlooked among Christians among the church is the power of vision. Why do we seem to fail and never get our dreams, ambitions, and desires off the ground? Because we lack the proper vision towards what we’re aiming at. Instead of settling for mediocrity, average; we must set our sights on what is excellent and above expectations.

4. Express Your Gifts Effectively: What are spiritual gifts?  How do I discover my abilities and personality type? How do my passions fit into God’s plan? A large part of SPECIAL Ministry is discovering our unique gifts that God has given us: our spiritual gifts, personality type, interests, longings, and abilities. We’ll also look into how to use our gifts serving the church and communities.

5. Examine Your Past to Exceed: How do I overcome my failures? What purpose does my past give me? Can I learn from my mistakes? God uses every part of our life for his purposes and glory. Every mistake, failure, triumph, accomplishment, etc. has meaning. We must train ourselves to surrender our past to God, learn from them, remember all that God has done for us, and press on towards living our lives to the fullest.

6. Enrich Your Life to the Extraordinary:  Why can’t I seem to experience life to the fullest? How do attain joy in my life? What is the key to happiness? Why does my job seem to drain me?  There is an incredible attitude of indifference towards living with joy and wonder in today’s church. Why? Because we focus more on following rules, traditions, and doing the bare minimum of what is required of us. Give God just enough to make Him happy and that’ll be sufficient. Why are so many people unhappy with their lives? Because we settle getting by and never leave our comfort zones. With SPECIAL Ministry you’ll learn how to live life with joy, wonder, and adventure.

7. Enter Your Future with Eagerness:  How do I leave a legacy? How do I ensure a bright and meaningful future? What things should I emphasize towards my future? With the state of the economy and the doom and gloom around us, it’s hard to look upon our futures with optimism. How can we live for today, yet at the same time prepare for tomorrow? We’ll look at all these questions and more as we learn that not only do we have reason for optimism but we should be overcome with excitement and eagerness towards what God has in store to us.