Date of Award

2005

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Communications

Department

Business

First Advisor

Michael Castro

Abstract

This culminating project will focus on the study of Motivational Gifts found in the New Testament of Romans namely, Perceiver, Server, Teacher, Exhorter, Giver, Administrator and Compassion. These gifts highly influence one's personality.

Research has shown an increase in interest in spiritual gifts in the last decade in church ministries. However a literature review reveals that no existing instruments have developed testing for Motivational Gifts that does not focus on biblical principles.

Though many books explore motivational gifts from different perspectives including church growth, awareness, discovery, use, self-assessment, and personal growth, the motivational gift tests commercially available today are worded to apply to Christians or for use in the church which makes the instrument to determine one's gift difficult to use in secular organizations.

Because Motivational Gifts have only been used in a Christian environment there still remains a need for a reliable instrument that not only tests Christians but the secular world as well.

The purpose of this study is to determine if the gifts listed in Romans shape the personality of individuals and to conduct testing to see if the religious based gifts are applicable and useful in a secular setting. This study will assist in identifying Motivational Gifts that operate throughout a person's life. It will define the seven Motivational Gifts outlined in Romans 12:6-8, which are Perceiver, Server, Teacher, Exhorter, Giver, Administrator (Leader), and Mercy. These seven gifts describe an individual's "frame of mind" for dealing with life situations.

Three Hundred and Forty-nine people participated in the study. Participants were given a workbook that described the characteristics of each gift and provided a scoring scale of O to 5 with O meaning that no behavior occurs and 5 meaning that the behavior occurs all the time. The purpose of completing the gift test was to assist individuals in identifying their Romans 12 "Motivational Gift".

Results of the testing suggest that the Motivational Gifts can be applied usefully in secular settings and have promise for use in education, employment as well as in clinical and marital counseling.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Download

Share

COinS