Great Expectations: A Look at Ministry and Spiritual Gifts

While sitting in chapel last night, I wrote the following:
"Sitting in Kaleo trying to follow one of our campus pastors during a sermon can be a painful process. If I hear the word "hope" one more time when she is trying to describe the feeling and idea behind "hope", I may just scream. Or if she goes on for another five minutes about how excited she is about the story that she is going to be sharing with us this evening and how she keeps a list of stories in her journal and always checks to see if her sermon will fit one of them in and its one of the most amazing stories she's ever heard in her life and she so ecstatic and privileged to share it, I may just need to hit my head against the chair in front of me. TELL THE STORY ALREADY! (I'm sure it doesn't help that someone around me has a really bad gas problem tonight... stinky chicken gas... like a chicken "farm"... yes... stinky chicken.)
Exactly why listening to this campus pastor is so painful, I'm not sure, but I believe part of the problem is that her sermons are so scattered and she comes off as inarticulate. I have to wonder just how many public speaking classes she took and who passed her. I'm not trying to be mean, because I believe she is a wonderful person and has many good insights and things to say, but public speaking is not how she should go about doing it."
It does bother me a bit that any one who has their M.Div. is automatically received as a person prepared for pastoring and speaking to a large group of people. I'm sorry, but that just doesn't make any sense to me practically or biblically. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul reminds the Christians at Corinth that there are different types of spiritual gifts. Why the Church expects all ministers and pastors to have the same spiritual gifts and be able to partake in the same types of ministry, I don't understand. I do understand that there are certain qualities a pastor or minister much possess, but I believe that people who have the ministerial calling should use the gifts God has given them and not always have "gifts" forced upon them. The pastor at my old church was a poor public speaker as well, but he was fantastic with the written word and was really wonderful for Christian counseling. I believe this campus pastor may have similar gifts and that she is and can be a great blessing to the APU community, but that this current job and it's expectations do not fit well with her spiritual gifts. I wish people in the Church would pay more attention to spiritual gifts when placing others in ministerial positions, and I hope this person can find her particular calling and be able to use it at this campus.