Trainer
Congrats on taking an important step in discovering your destiny! The Ministry Gift Assessment reveals your Ministry Gift. We also call it your Destiny Orientation (D.O.). It’s your core trait or design, and it influences the basic way you relate to your world.
General Orientation Traits
You are a Trainer and have a teaching orientation based on the gift of teacher named in Ephesians 4:11, and are "wired" by God to function in teaching gifting, thinking and action. You are a trainer who loves to present truth to others in order to transform their beliefs and behaviors. You live to help others understand God’s Word and apply God’s principles in order to overcome obstacles and become the people that God has called them to be.
You are a knowledgeable person who seeks to understand the facts about many things. You care deeply about the timeless truths of Scripture and the power of truth to transform people. You have deep faith in the knowledge that truth will set people free. You are precise and seek to explain what is not clear. You love to communicate and teach, even when not asked. You are often the smartest person in the room or at least the most knowledgeable in the area of your expertise. You spend time studying and researching to broaden your knowledge base, so you can provide answers when they are needed. You love information of all types, even random facts and statistics. You focus on imparting truth and knowledge rather than opinion or feelings.
The teaching orientation expresses itself in different ways in different people but everyone with this design tends to be a skilled instructor, a passionate educator and a helpful mentor. Most people with this orientation are great students, able researchers and good communicators. You are most fulfilled and content when you are learning new things and communicating these things to hungry hearts and open minds.
You see truth as most important and you have the mindset that says, "Just learn this!"
Issues
You love to teach, instruct and debate the facts. Be careful, because sometimes you can be contentious or come across as a know-it-all. You are focused on facts and figures; you can become driven, controlling, dogmatic; and sometimes major on minors. You can be opinionated, argumentative, analytical, and even skeptical. Because of your focus on knowledge, truth and content, you may overlook people’s feelings or make the task or content more important than the person. You will benefit from increasing your awareness that the people you want to help are living human beings with emotions and feelings, not “projects.”
You may sometimes speak the truth without love and justify it because you are right. Be careful of this, because even if you have every fact right but you have no love, your words will be discredited and you will alienate the people you are speaking to. (1 Cor. 13) When questioned or challenged, you may easily feel threatened and respond defensively or arrogantly. Don’t! Learn to listen, process, and only then respond.
The Trainer in the Workplace
In the workplace, you are most likely to be the one who is creating and preserving data, facts and figures, which helps the organization to be wise in it’s stewardship of information and resources. You teach and train others. Your desire is to raise up new leaders who carry your same passion for communicating truth and education. You are probably well-suited for a career in education, training, sales and technical support and assistant or specialty coaching. In friendships, you are often the one who is giving advice (even when not asked for) and providing helpful information. In ministry or service to others, you are usually the one who teaches systematic Bible or lifestyle classes and provides training to others.
Church and Ministry Settings
In a ministry setting, the trainer is the one who focuses on the Word of God and who provides the bulk of the teaching and biblical thinking to keep the Church historically and theologically rooted in the true message even as methods of ministry and media change. The teacher orientation also imparts a love and honor for the Word of God like no other gift can bring. They instruct the ignorant. They correct the errors. They clarify the ambiguous positions and they help us come into the fullness of Christ as they speak the truth in love. They are the educators of the family of God, taking the new believers and providing the training and discipleship for them to grow and mature into the power people that God created them to be.
Relationship to Other Orientations
Trainers work most closely with pastors on a local level to provide the theological plumb line and the consistent discipleship teaching for the Church. The teaching orientation is given by God to provide the truth that informs the believers’ mindset and worldview. Jesus said that the “truth would set us free.” The truth displaces the “lie” and that sets us free.
When we are born again and begin to grow in Christ, we need to be “transformed by the renewing of our minds” and trainers focus on the renewal of the mind. Yet the reason we are calling the person with a teacher gifting a “trainer” is because Jesus said, it is not enough to hear the Word, we need to become doers of the Word. Trainers are essential companions to each of the other gifts because they inform the other orientations of the true meaning and application of scripture. They are also essential because they provide the general foundations for every emerging leader to grow into their specific gifts and calling in Christ.
Biblical Example
Acts refers to Apollos with a high regard for his teaching abilities. He was a highly-educated Alexandrian Jew who spoke and taught accurately about Jesus even though he only knew the baptism of John. Apollos moved from Alexandria to Ephesus, and he began to teach boldly to the crowds about Jesus with accuracy and great spiritual fervor. When Priscilla and Aquila joined Paul in Ephesus, they instructed Apollos who was open to further study in order to improve his knowledge of Jesus’ teachings.
You focus on imparting truth and knowledge rather than fashion or feelings. You are made to deliver truth for transformation. Go for it!