Understanding Your Assessment Scores
Our APEST-11D™ assessment provides a comprehensive view of how your APEST gifts interact across 11 key dimensions of human interaction, three modes of operation, and four stages of maturity. You’ll gain insights not only into your primary and secondary APEST gifts, but also into your third-highest gift, which we call your Bridge Gift. This is arguably the most important gift in your APEST mix. Discovering and leveraging this gift unlocks the potential of your fourth and fifth-ranking gifts while strengthening your first and second-highest gifts—hence, it's called the Bridge Gift.
You will receive a detailed report that helps you understand your leadership style, why you thrive in certain situations, and where you may face challenges. The report includes four sections with over seven different visuals, graphs, and charts to help you interpret your results. Expect actionable insights to guide your personal and leadership development.
Your gift scores are calculated using an algorithm that analyzes:
1. How often do you select each gift as your primary choice?
2. Your operational sophistication, which is your framework selections. Framework selections are the last three options available for selection after each question on the assessment; they are: a) simultaneously, b) sequentially, and c) contextually.
3. Your gift integration patterns (tension awareness)
4. The complexity of your responses across all dimensions
5. The assessment rewards authentic, integrated expression rather than simple selection frequency. This is why selecting a gift multiple times doesn't guarantee a high percentage—the algorithm measures depth and maturity, not just quantity.
Unlike personality tests that divide you into categories, our assessment measures how strongly you express each gift independently.
Think of it like measuring different skills:
You might be 80% skilled at teaching AND 60% skilled at leading. These aren't competing - they're complementary strengths. A person can have multiple strong gifts or multiple developing areas
Tensions are NOT weaknesses! They represent:
1. Secondary strengths you resonate with.
2. Growth edges where you're developing.
3. Authentic complexity in how you
operate.
4. Integration opportunities between gifts.
When you select tensions, you're saying, "I also connect with this approach".
Common Questions
Selection frequency isn't everything! Your percentage depends on:
1. How you selected (with/without tensions and frameworks)
2. Your tension patterns affect scoring uniquely.
3. The scoring algorithm can detect and reward authenticity.
This is authentic human complexity! Most people aren't just one gift - they're:
1. Primary in one area (50-70%)
2. Secondary in 2-3 areas (30-50%)
3. Developing in others (10-30%)
This reflects how real people actually operate in ministry and life.
Your third-highest gift represents strategic development opportunity:
1. You already have some natural capacity (it's not zero).
2. It's accessible for growth (not your weakest area).
3. Developing it could exponentially increase your impact.
4. It often becomes a "bridge gift" that connects your other strengths.
Ties are normal and reveal important patterns. If two or more gifts have the same percentage, they're equally developed in your current expression. This could mean you're operating from multiple gifts with similar strength, or you're in a transitional phase where gifts are balancing out. Your radar chart and dimensional breakdown will show you WHERE each tied gift operates, helping you understand how they work together in your leadership
Our questions use sophisticated choice distinctions to capture authentic differences.These subtle differences reveal how you're wired, not just what you do.
Growth Space shows your development potential, not current weakness:
1. 50% Growth Space = Significant room for development.
2. 80% Growth Space = High potential for expansion.
3. This is an opportunity, not a deficiency.
Think of it like athletic potential - even elite athletes have room for growth.
General Quesitons
The APEST-11D™ assessment is unique because it doesn’t just assess the presence of gifts but shows how your APEST gifts interact across key dimensions, including maturity levels and contextual effectiveness. It goes deeper than traditional assessments by offering granular insights into your leadership style, challenges, and growth areas in specific ministry settings.
While the APEST-11D™ assessment is designed specifically with ministry leadership in mind, the principles can also apply to various organizational contexts. We’ve seen leaders in different sectors benefit from understanding their gifts and how to best leverage them in their teams. Contact us for more information about how our tools can apply to your unique context.
Yes! We offer follow-up consultations and additional resources to help you interpret your results and apply the insights in your ministry. Whether you’re navigating specific leadership challenges or seeking further clarity on your gift expression, we’re here to help guide you.
You can download your results in a shareable PDF format, making it easy to distribute or present to your team or organization. Additionally, we offer team-based consultations to help groups use the insights from the assessment to improve team dynamics and effectiveness.
es, we offer licensing opportunities for thought leaders, practitioners, and organizations to use our APEST assessments in their practices. By licensing our tools, you can integrate them into your own leadership development programs, workshops, or consulting services. If you're interested in learning more about licensing options and how it could benefit your practice, please reach out to us, and we’d be happy to discuss the details!
Understanding Your Results Sections
This shows your overall gift distribution across the entire assessment:
1. Strength percentage: Your total expression of each gift.
2. Times selected: How often you chose each gift as primary.
3. Tension interactions: How often did you feel a secondary connection to each gift
4. Framework applications: How often have you applied operational frameworks
The radar chart displays ONE GIFT and shows where that gift appears across all 11 dimensions. Each point on the radar represents one of the 11 dimensions:
1. Core Motivational Drivers
2. Operational Functions
3. Communication Patterns
4. Leadership Expression
5. Transformational Objectives
6. Cultural Expression
7. Environmental Requirements
8. Gift Interaction Patterns
9. Opposition Dynamics
10. Development Trajectory
11. Health Metrics
The overall shape is your leadership signature. Asymmetrical patterns show contextual flexibility. Symmetrical patterns show consistent expression. Neither is better—both are valid expressions of mature leadership.
We intentionally removed numbers because when people see scores, they treat the assessment like a test rather than a diagnostic. The visual SHAPE pattern reveals how you actually operate—that's the breakthrough, not any individual number.
This rank-orders your gifts from strongest to weakest expression, helping you understand:
1. Your primary operating gift (highest percentage)
2. Your secondary strengths (moderate percentages)
3. Your growth opportunities (lower percentages)
Assessment Process and Support
1. https://flourishingcurrents.com/apest-11d-results-radar-chart/
2. https://flourishingcurrents.com/apest-assessment-fivefold-ministry/
Once you complete the assessment, you will receive a detailed report outlining your APEST gifts, their expression across various ministry dimensions, and actionable insights for improving your leadership effectiveness. You will also gain access to visual graphs and charts to help interpret your results and guide your growth.
No, you do not need to be in a formal leadership role to take the APEST-11D™ assessment. It is valuable for anyone interested in understanding their unique gifts and how they can contribute to a ministry or team, regardless of their current position.
Absolutely! The APEST-11D™ assessment is designed to provide clarity whether you are new to the APEST model or have prior experience. The results will help you understand your gifts and their expression in your context, providing a solid foundation for further learning and development.
If you feel that the results don’t fully reflect your experience or how you see yourself, that’s okay! The APEST-11D™ assessment provides insights based on your responses, but it's important to remember that your gifts can express themselves in different ways over time. If the results don’t seem to align with your immediate perception, we encourage you to review the feedback carefully. Consider how your gifts may have developed or evolved in various ministry contexts, or how they might have been under-expressed until now. The APEST-11D™ is designed to capture even the smallest nuances in gift expression, so sometimes the results reveal areas for growth, maturity, and further expression that may not have been immediately obvious to you. If you’d like to explore your results in greater depth or have any concerns, we offer consultations to help interpret your assessment and guide you in applying the insights to your leadership journey.
We offer a significant discount to make our assessments globally accessible! Our standard prices are $49, $29, and $20, but we’ve reduced these prices by up to 50% to ensure everyone has the opportunity to benefit from this valuable tool. If you're concerned about affordability, don’t hesitate to contact us—whether you're an individual or part of a ministry or organization, we’re committed to making sure you can access the insights you need to grow and lead effectively. Contact us, and we will send you the accessible code.
Still Have Questions?
Our assessment reveals how your APEST gifts express themselves across various contexts in your ministry, including how they operate. It also evaluates your maturity level in each gift, providing an in-depth assessment grounded in sociological, psychological, theological, and independently researched questions. By analyzing your responses, we offer insights into how Christ’s APEST gift set functions in you—highlighting areas where you excel and where you can improve. This helps you better align your strengths with your ministry’s needs. What stands out about APEST-11D is its ability to show you how, when, and where your APEST gifts are expressed. With these granular details, you can leverage your leadership more effectively to lead teams and build Jesus's church.
You’ll receive a detailed report that outlines how your APEST gifts function across 11 key dimensions of ministry life. The report will highlight your strengths and areas for growth, providing actionable steps to enhance your leadership effectiveness and your ability to work with others in diverse ministry settings. What sets this report apart is the unique algorithm of the assessment, which delivers results tailored specifically to you. In other words, no one else will receive the exact same results as you. The assessment does not provide pre-made or pre-designed outcomes for each gift ranking. Instead, based on your responses, your results—graphs, charts, and all—will be uniquely yours.
Our assessments are grounded in ongoing independent research with pastors, leaders, practitioners, and thought leaders within the Five-Fold Ministry. We integrate theological principles with psychological and sociological insights to create questions for all of our assessments. Validation is achieved through both independent research and real-world application, ensuring that our tools provide reliable and actionable insights.
However, validation is an ongoing process. We aim to gather up to 10,000 assessments within ministry settings to validate our tools and up to 50,000 global, cross-cultural results for broader international application. While the current assessments are accurate and insightful, our research continues to evolve as we strive for increasingly irrefutable evidence of their validity. We remain committed to refining and updating our methods based on feedback and emerging trends in ministry. The assessment captures overall two-way and even three-way ties, recording gift expression with up to a 0.5-point difference. But it goes further, revealing how these ties may break in different dimensions of ministry.
For example, you might have an overall tie between Shepherd and Prophet. But in "Complex Interactions™," your Shepherd gift could emerge as primary, while in "Leadership and Transformation™," your Prophet gift takes the lead. This level of detail is invaluable for understanding the nuanced expression of your gifts across various ministry contexts.
These insights highlight areas for potential growth and often indicate maturity in your leadership. They show how you adaptively express your gifts based on the needs of different situations.
The results explanations will guide you in understanding and applying this nuanced gift profile. For deeper insights into leveraging these context-specific gift expressions, we offer follow-up consultations to help you maximize your leadership effectiveness in every aspect of your ministry. We remain committed to refining and updating our methods based on feedback and emerging trends in ministry.
Our assessments have been developed over several years, with the initial beta version released in November 2024 and the refined version launched in February 2025. Drawing on both research and practical ministry experience, these assessments have been tested by strategic partners and ministry leaders to improve leadership effectiveness. With a proven track record of enhancing ministry outcomes, our next version update is set to release in February 2026, continuing to build on feedback and results from real-world use.
There are no specific prerequisites to take the APEST-11D™ assessment. However, it is helpful if you have some basic understanding of the APEST framework. If you are new to APEST, we recommend reviewing introductory resources or contacting us for a brief overview before beginning the assessment.
If you have never taken an APEST Assessment, we recommend taking the 5Q assessment first.
Purchases, Refunds, and Customer Care
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Yes, we do offer group discounts! If you're interested in using our assessments for your team, church, or organization, please reach out to us directly. We can discuss your specific needs and provide a customized discount based on the size of the group and the number of assessments you'd like to purchase.
If You Have Any Questions
Take the First Step
Begin your journey to unlock the full potential of your APEST gifts and enhance your leadership effectiveness. With our comprehensive assessments, you’ll gain actionable insights to thrive in ministry life.
01
Forward Thinking
We provide innovative assessments that combine theology, research, and real-world context to give you a deep understanding of how your APEST gifts impact your leadership.
02
Actionable Content
Our assessments offer clear, practical guidance that helps you understand why you thrive in some situations and where you can grow, empowering you to lead with confidence.
03
Forward Thinking
With ongoing tools and assessments like APEST Polarities™ and experiential APEST, we support your leadership development at every stage, ensuring continuous growth and impact in your ministry.