Last week, wandering around the Lakeville church offices of Hosanna! (see my previous post: Valuing Kids at Church), I noticed that everyone's door or cubicle wall had two prominent items: their name and their top five qualities from StrengthsFinder. From lead pastor Bill Bohline to all staff, no one's list of five seemed the same.
Why do they do this? "It's the way your spiritual gifts play out," explained Mary Carroll, the church's executive director. All the staff and many lay leaders have been trained in StrengthsFinder, which comes from the Gallup organization and has been popularized most in the book Now, Discover Your Strengths. So it's a reminder to each person of "who am I?" But more so, according to Jennifer Ford, vice president of the church board, it communicates, "Here's a shortcut for how to work with me -- by knowing who I am, you can quickly see how to work with my strengths."
What a great idea! "It's really helped us understand each other," Mary Carroll told us. "It affirms that no one is more valuable than the other, just as First Corinthians teaches us about how the Body of Christ works together."
Warren Bird, Ph.D., is Research Director at Leadership Network, and co-author of 19 books on various aspects of church health and innovation.
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