Friday, April 29, 2016

The Ultimate Goal

The ultimate goal of the GPS Life Journey is to help you discover and fulfill God’s purpose for your life. The GPS Life Journey will lead you through a guided self-examination of your personality, your life experiences, your strengths and skill sets, your spiritual gifts and your passions. The resulting personal profile will help you match who you are and what you do best to an area of ministry and service ideally suited to you.

We want to assist you in finding that perfect role that God has designed for you. The goal is not for you to merely serve in the Kingdom of God to meet some need. The goal is for you to serve in a role that God has uniquely created and shaped you to fill. Serving in that role will impact the Kingdom of God, give you a sense of fulfillment, change the world, and leave a legacy of significance. To serve outside your God-given profile most often leads to frustration and ineffectiveness.

Friday, April 22, 2016

Nothing New Under the Sun

Personality assessments are nothing new. These assessments have been around at least since 400 BC when Hippocrates hypothesized that there were four basic personalities or temperaments of all individuals. While there are numerous combinations or patterns of the characteristics of different personality types, psychologists today still believe these four basic types describe our behaviors.
Most businesspersons and professionals have participated in many personality and behavioral assessments during their professional careers. Yet here is what I have discovered in working with these individuals over the past several years. While they have knowledge of such assessments, most do not understand how this information can impact and affect their behavior in the real world.

Personality assessments are nothing new.

Just recently, Jim, a retired launch director for the NASA Space Program, stated, “I have participated in many relationship and behavioral assessments before, but now, after going through the GPS Life Journey, I understand how all this should change my behavior and how it can help me effectively fulfill God’s purpose for my life.”

Friday, April 15, 2016

Take the GPS Life Journey Experiences assessment.
Answering the following questions will help you identify life experiences that can be used effectively in future ministry.
1. What are the educational experiences you have had? Include school, special training, and apprenticeships?
2. What are the vocational experiences you have had? Include fields of experience, types of work, and jobs?
3. What are the ministry experiences you have had? Include positions, roles, and types of ministries?
4. What are the cross-­‐cultural experiences you have had? Include relationships and missions experiences?
5. What are the painful experiences of life you have had, such as health issues, broken relationships, and financial problems?

Friday, April 8, 2016

Discovering Gold!

Before I discovered the fascinating characteristics of different personality types, I was ready to fire some excellent, very effective team members. I was the Staff Coordinator of the First Baptist Church of Atlanta, Georgia, and had the responsibility for leading several ministry department leaders. Some of them had a serious problem. They were not like me! To be different from me was to be unneeded. I thought everyone should think, act, and function like me. (Now that would be a really sad world!)
These individuals did not march to the beat of my drums. They were not intense. They were not focused. Therefore, they had to be lazy.

Then, “eureka!” I was introduced to the study of personality types. My leadership, and I might add, my level of effectiveness as a leader, have never been the same since. Now, I never attempt to lead, or even serve as a member of a team, without seeking to discover and understand the various personality types of each team member.

Friday, April 1, 2016

Discovering and Understanding My Personality

I am a very focused person. I am intense!
A dear friend of mine who knows me well created a David Letterman “Top Ten List of Things You Should Know about Nolen Rollins.” Item number one was, “Nolen has the ugliest golf swing in the world, but he will take that swing and his focus on winning and beat you.” (Well, at least the first half of this statement is true all the time.)

I do not remember all the items on the list but I do remember points number two, six, and ten. They were all the same. “Nolen is a little intense!” You see my friend, Bill, is a very laid back, slow moving guy. He sees me as extremely intense. He is accurate. That is how God has hard-wired me.

Different Strokes for Different Folks

Each of us has a natural, God-given personality. While many of us may be similar, each of us is still very different. Clarice, my wife of over forty years, is the sweetest, warmest, kindest person in the world. She gets great pleasure in serving others. I often tell people, “I am of all men most blessed. My wife has the gift of serving and I have the gift of bossing!” (Bossing is not one of the “spiritual” gifts.)

I have a friend, Charles, who is a very deliberate, disciplined individual. He is consistent and methodical in his approach to life. Another friend, Rodger, is a story teller. You can mention any situation of life and Rodger has an interesting story from his never-ending mental storybook that fits that situation. (Seriously, I think he makes up some of them.)
Each of us has a natural, God-given personality.