Apostle, Prophet, Teacher – that’s how I usually score when I take the survey at fivefoldsurvey.com , the website that I mentioned last time about our personal interests and giftings. Those are my “home base” in terms of how I operate in the Body of Christ. This leaves out two giftings/interests from the list in Ephesians 4:11-12, Evangelist and Shepherd. This is especially embarrassing for me because “Shepherd” often gets translated “pastor”. So I’m a pastor whose gift isn’t pastoring. Nor is it evangelisting, so I guess a television show will never be in my future. Shucks.
But that’s the thing about being a part of the Body of Christ. We don’t get to be all of the parts of the Body of Christ. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul goes on about a foot saying it doesn’t belong to the body because it’s not a hand, but it is equally a problem if the foot thinks that it is the entirety of the body. The foot gets to be a foot, and the hand gets to be a hand, and I get to be a pastor who struggles to pastor. 
That doesn’t mean that I stop being a pastor. The “shepherding” quality that always shows up as one of the least of my qualities is one that cares for people, especially when they are hurting. It’s the quality of a doctor with a “bedside manner”. It’s the quality of your friend who really listens to you. I have to access those qualities for my job, for my life, for my vocations not only of pastoring, but of husbanding and of fathering. It just means those aren’t going to be the situations where I feel natural. I’m going to have to work at it. I’m also going to have natural blindspots in those areas. And it means I’m going to have to get some help from people who are naturally gifted that way.
But God, it seems, has created me with qualities that make it easy for me to teach. I can grasp and explain concepts with greater ease than some. God, it seems, has created me with prophetic ability, the ability to hear from Him and to discern direction. God, it seems, has created me with apostolic interests – I’m interested in starting new things, in listening to Harvard Business Review podcasts, and in the internal logic of organizations. Those are great gifts that help me pastor, even if I don’t have the gift of pastoring.
The Gospel in this is simple. I can be me, a pastor whose gift isn’t pastoring. I can be me, and that’s ok, because Jesus is Jesus. Jesus is the only person who has all of the gifts, and because He knew that, He put me together with people who have the gifts that I don’t. That’s why it is important for us to realize that we together are a part of the Body – because we need one another like a hand needs a foot, like a spleen needs a lung. Because where we are lacking, there is Christ in His perfection, providing for what we lack. When we find that we are lacking, that is actually good news, because we’re not expected to be it all. We can just be ourselves, and be the best selves we can be, but we don’t have to try to be everyone.
Please consider taking some time to take the fivefoldsurvey.com , pray, and/or think about where you may not be gifted. And then thank God that He has provided Himself and the Body of Christ at University Lutheran to provide for what you lack.