Sign in Subscribe

SHAPE Assessments: Discovering How Your People Are Gifted

Last updated on 
Headline "Know how your people are gifted." beside a card listing the five SHAPE areas, from Spiritual Gifts to Experiences.
SHAPE looks at five areas of how a person is made, so your care team can find the right helper.

The people your care ministry needs are already in your congregation. The hard part is that you don't always know how each person is gifted, so the same few names get asked again and again.

0:00
/1:49

Watch: SHAPE assessments in two minutes.

SHAPE is an add-on for CareNote that finds them. Members take a self-paced assessment, their results appear on their profile, and your care team gets suggested helpers right on a care request.

What SHAPE looks at

SHAPE is a spiritual gifts assessment that looks at five dimensions of how a person is made, not just one:

  • S for Spiritual Gifts: scored across 19 gifts and ranked from highest to lowest.
  • H for Heart: the people, causes, and passions that move them.
  • A for Abilities: the practical skills they love using, and the ones they don't.
  • P for Personality: a full DISC profile across all four dimensions.
  • E for Experiences: the spiritual, painful, educational, and ministry experiences that shaped them.
The public SHAPE landing page with the CareNote logo beside the church name and the five areas the assessment covers
Notice the header: your church name sits beside the CareNote logo, so people know whose assessment they are taking.

The assessment needs no login for the person taking it. Most people set aside about 45 to 60 minutes. The written reflections are optional, and progress saves as people go, so they can pick it back up later from a personal link.

Turning SHAPE on for your team

  1. In the left sidebar, click Settings.
  2. Expand the Optional Add-ons group.
  3. Click S.H.A.P.E.
  4. Review the overview page and activate the add-on when you're ready.

Once active, this page becomes your control panel. A green SHAPE Assessment is active banner has View Assessments and View invitation batches buttons. Below it sits your read-only Public Assessment Link with Copy link and Open buttons. A Settings card holds two checkboxes:

  • Enable public assessment. Untick it to close the assessment for a season; the public link shows an unavailable notice.
  • Share results with team members. When on, Team Members can view completed results for people they can already see.

Add a Welcome message if you like, then click Save settings.

The active SHAPE settings page with the public link and both checkboxes ticked, including Share results with team members
Find the two checkboxes in the Settings card, then the Welcome message and Save settings below them.

Inviting your congregation

Once SHAPE is active, there are two ways to get people started, both from the settings page:

  1. Share your public link. It's right at the top of the settings page with Copy and Open buttons. Post it in a newsletter or group chat. No login needed.
  2. Send personalized invitations. Use Invite CareNote Users to reach your team, or Invite Congregants to filter by affiliation, classification, campus, or age. Each person gets their own link, so results tie back to their profile automatically. Every send is tracked under View invitation batches.
Step 2 of 12 of the assessment, Spiritual Gifts page 1 of 7, with the progress-saved note and the 0 to 3 rating scale
The green note confirms progress is saved and that a link to finish later was emailed.

Reading the results

When someone submits, CareNote ranks the 19 gifts and tallies the DISC responses. Results show up in a few places.

On the member's profile. Open a person who has completed the assessment and you'll find a collapsible SHAPE Profile section showing their top 3 spiritual gifts with scores, their DISC primary, the completed date, and a View full SHAPE assessment link.

Grace Kim's profile with the SHAPE Profile section showing her top 3 gifts with scores, DISC primary, and completed date
The top 3 gifts show with scores out of 21, such as Wisdom (21/21).

In the SHAPE Assessments list. Click View Assessments on the settings page (or the link on any profile) to see everyone at a glance, with each person's stage (Completed, In progress, or Invited), top gifts, and linked profile. Assessments without a matching profile show a Link to Profile action. If your church uses campuses, people limited to certain campuses only see assessments for their campus.

The SHAPE Assessments list with stage badges, top gifts, and a Link to Profile action
Stage badges show who has finished, who is partway through, and who still needs a nudge.

In the full assessment. Open any assessment to see every gift ranked, the DISC breakdown, and every written answer. The Download PDF button in its header is handy for a one-on-one conversation.

The full SHAPE assessment with respondent details, top gifts, the DISC breakdown, and the written answers
Scroll past the DISC cards to read every gift and written answer.

Letting Team Members see results

When Share results with team members is on, Team Members see a read-only SHAPE Assessment tab (the last tab) on a person's profile, once that person has a completed assessment. View opens a SHAPE results slide-over with a Download PDF button. Team Members can't edit or create assessments.

A Team Member's view of a person's profile with the read-only SHAPE Assessment tab
The tab is read-only and shows Completed, DISC, and Top 3 Gifts.

Putting gifts to work: Who can help?

Once people have completed the assessment, SHAPE can suggest who might help with a care request.

  1. Open a care request in the Admin panel.
  2. Click the Who can help? tab, between Tasks and Huddle. It appears only when SHAPE is active and you can edit the request.
  3. Click Find people who can help. CareNote ranks completed assessments against the need and shows a message such as "Found 6 people who may be able to help".
  4. Review the list. Each row shows Name, Type, a Fit score out of 100, Why this person, and Status.
The Who can help? tab before any matches, with the Find people who can help button
Before you search, the tab reads No matches yet.
The Who can help? tab with ranked matches, Fit scores, and the reason for each suggestion
Read the Why this person column before reaching out; it names the gifts and passions behind each score.
  1. For a good fit, click Send "I can help" on the row. Tick checkboxes to send in bulk, or click Dismiss to remove a suggestion. The invitation email asks only whether the person can help; no care details are shared.

These are suggestions, not assignments, so review each one before reaching out.

Frequently asked questions

How long does the assessment take? Most people set aside about 45 to 60 minutes, and they can resume anytime from the link CareNote emails them.

Where do we see the results? Top gifts and DISC primary appear on each member's profile. For the full picture, use View full SHAPE assessment there, or View Assessments on the settings page.

I clicked a SHAPE link and hit an "Access Restricted" page. What happened? The SHAPE add-on most likely isn't active for your team yet, or your role doesn't have access. Check Settings, Optional Add-ons, S.H.A.P.E, or ask your team administrator.

The generic Access Restricted page you'll see if the add-on isn't active for your team
This plain page means the add-on is off or your role can't open the page.

Is this a recognized framework? Yes. The SHAPE framework was developed by Erik Rees and Rick Warren at Saddleback Church. This is a digital adaptation built for CareNote, used with permission. Portions are adapted from Rees, Erik. S.H.A.P.E: finding and fulfilling your unique purpose for life. Zondervan, 2006.

Watch