copyright Favoring Brave LLC 2023
Behind almost every fruitful ministry stands someone whose name isn't on the door — because they have a charism (spiritual gift) of helps, and the vision wouldn't happen without them.
Every charism makes some aspect of God present in the world. Helps makes His faithfulness present — the steady, personal commitment that attaches itself to a mission and sees it through. Where most gifts operate on their own terms, helps is deliberately relational: the person with this charism takes everything they're good at and puts it in the service of someone else's calling.
You've seen this gift even if you've never had a name for it. It's the "right-hand" person in any organization — paired with a visionary leader, content to execute the hundred foundational tasks that turn a vision into something real. It shows up powerfully in marriage, too, when one spouse is particularly disposed toward helping execute the couple's shared vision through the other's work. None of this is a lesser role; it's a distinct supernatural gift, and leaders who've had someone with helps beside them will tell you the mission ran on it.
Helps is frequently confused with its sibling charism, service — and the difference is worth knowing, because both are on the assessment. The clearest way to separate them is the arena where each one operates. Service is general-purpose: it meets whatever need is in front of the person, wherever they happen to be — the grocery store as readily as the parish hall. Helps is oriented toward a larger vision: the person with helps attaches their work to a specific ministry, leader, or mission and serves that, faithfully and long-term.
If you meet needs wherever you find them, look at service. If your gifts come most alive supporting one particular calling over time, keep reading.
St. Paul names this gift in his list at 1 Corinthians 12:28 — "then, gifts of healing, assistance, administration" — and his letters are full of the people who lived it. Think of the co-workers Paul greets by name: Phoebe, "a benefactor to many and to me as well" (Romans 16:1–2); Priscilla and Aquila, "who risked their necks for my life" (Romans 16:3–4); Onesiphorus, who "often refreshed me" (2 Timothy 1:16–18). The pattern repeats in the Gospels: the women who followed Jesus and "provided for them out of their resources" (Luke 8:1–3).
Other key passages include Exodus 17:8–13 (Aaron and Hur holding up Moses' hands) and Acts 16:1–3 (Timothy joining Paul's mission). If you're exploring this charism, read one passage a day and notice which ones feel like a description of you.
If you answered yes to any of these, that is a decent indicator that helps might be one of your charisms. Discernment still takes prayer, feedback, and testing — but it's a strong starting point.
The charism of helps is not a personality of passivity, and it is not code for "doormat." The person with helps brings their full set of talents to the mission they support — judgment, initiative, skill, honesty — and a healthy expression of this gift includes telling the leader hard truths, not just executing instructions. If an arrangement requires you to disappear as a person, that's not this charism operating; that's something to address. Helps flourishes in partnerships of genuine trust, where the vision-carrier and the vision-builder both know the mission belongs to God.
The charism assessment gives you an objective, outside read on where the Holy Spirit is most likely at work in you — winnowing the list of 24 possible charisms down to your most likely few in about 20 minutes.
It's the charism that empowers a person to be a particular support to another person's service, ministry, or vocation, using their own talents and gifts. St. Paul lists it among the gifts God has designated in the Church (1 Corinthians 12:28).
No — they're distinct charisms, though they're often confused. Service meets whatever need is in front of the person, wherever they are; helps attaches to a specific vision, leader, or mission and supports it faithfully over the long term.
Not at all — and the Church has never ranked charisms that way. Every gift is given by the same Spirit for the same purpose (1 Corinthians 12:4–7). Most fruitful ministries are partnerships between someone with a leading gift and someone with helps, and the mission depends on both.
Start with the charism assessment for an objective read on your most likely charisms, then confirm through prayer, feedback from people who know you well, and testing. The Catechism says this discernment is always necessary (CCC 801).
Ep. 30 — The Charism of Helps. The gift behind the gift — what it means to be supernaturally equipped to make someone else's mission succeed.
Listen on Apple Podcasts · Find the show wherever you listen
The Essential Handbook on Living Your Charisms has a full chapter on helps — including beginner-to-advanced ways to test the gift and a daily charism prayer.