One of the core values at the church where I am lead pastor is the importance of people using their spiritual gifts to serve Christ and the church. The Bible teaches that there are from 19-21 different gifts, divine empowerments by God which allow us to serve effectively along with other members of Christ's body to do the work of Jesus.
That's why Christianity can never be considered a spectator sport. It is not a matter of some doing the work and the rest cheering them on or writing checks to support their efforts. In fact, where some Christians chose to sit on the sidelines, the church is hampered and hindered. If your gift is intercession (prayer) and you (1) do not embrace the gift and (2) do not use the gift; the church loses a vital tool in the spiritual warfare in which it must engage in order to bring people into God's Kingdom. If your gift is giving and you ignore God's gifting, the church lacks both the resources and the modeling needed to help finance God's Kingdom work. The list goes on and on.
But when we ignore or resist God's spiritual gifting, we also suffer personally. Ephesians 4 tells us that part of God's plan is for us to become skilled servants "working within the church, until we're moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God's Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive alive like Christ." Ephesians 4:15b-16, The Message translation
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