About Gifted By God
Gifted By God is a gift-based ministry resource built from Scripture and designed for the local church. Every believer has been supernaturally equipped by the Holy Spirit to serve the Body of Christ. GBG exists to help believers discover what that equipping looks like, and to help Pastors build churches where every gift has a place.
The GBG module covers all eighteen spiritual gifts identified across Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4 — each examined through its original Greek text, Biblical examples, and practical application for the local church.
About the Author
Evangelist John Walter James Jr. was born again on April 26, 1988, at Eastside Baptist Church in Douglas, Georgia. From that moment he developed a deep hunger for the Word of God and rapid spiritual growth followed.
Licensed in 1988 and ordained in 1990, he earned a Master of Divinity degree from Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary in Memphis, Tennessee in 1995 — where he sat under the pastoral leadership of Dr. Adrian Rogers at Bellevue Baptist Church. During his seminary years he began developing teaching modules on spiritual gifts for the local New Testament church. Those modules became the foundation of what is now Gifted By God™.
Nearly 30 years of ministry — church planting, pastoral work, prison chaplaincy, revival preaching, and hands-on discipleship training across multiple states — shaped every word of this curriculum. GBG is not theoretical. It was built in the trenches of real church life and refined over decades of watching what happens when believers understand their gifts and what happens when they do not.
Try Jesus Ministries, the parent ministry of GBG, was established November 14, 1991. John currently serves as pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Axson, Georgia.
John is also the developer of two ministry technology projects currently in development: SheepSites.com — a church page hosting platform designed for local congregations — and FlockKeeper.org — a free church database program built to help Pastors manage their congregation effectively.
A Ministry of Try Jesus Ministries
Gifted By God operates under the umbrella of Try Jesus Ministries — a ministry dedicated to equipping believers and strengthening local churches across the Body of Christ.
How to Use This Site
Start with the GBG module to understand the eighteen gifts and how they work together. Use the Spiritual Gifts Survey to identify your primary gifting. Bring questions to the Q&A page — most church situations have a gift-based explanation. And check the blog for ongoing teaching drawn from real church life.
A Note to Pastors
Agape from King Jesus Christ! I know you are busy, so I will get straight to the point. Before you came to this site, I prayed for God to send Pastors who will be open to teaching Gifted By God in the local NT Church. If this is YOU, then welcome.
I have been studying spiritual giftedness for almost 30 years. The Gifted By God™ module is very user friendly. This module has been designed to put into the hands of a Pastor, so that they can become versed in spiritual giftedness. You can literally prepare yourself, and then everything you need to present this to a Church is included.
If you choose to click this button, you will get to see very heavily watermarked PDF copies of what is available for the gift of Administration. Anyone who looks at the details will know that it has been a lifetime project of mine, and possibly the “final” version is now on the Internet.