Over the last 5 years I have focused on one aspect of the Meyers-Briggs Inventory - introversion - but there are obviously many different categories the MBTI employs to evaluate a person's personality. If we spend too much time focusing on just one or two letters, we can miss the forest for the (introverted) trees. I continue to find the MBTI to be a very helpful resource in describing what people are like, what tendencies they have, and what ways they can stretch. Admittedly, sometimes we can get carried away with personality categorization and reduce people to a few capital letters, and we need to remind ourselves that human beings are infinitely complex and only truly comprehended as beings made in the image of God.
That said, I also enjoy trying to diagnose the personality of a group or body. That raises today's question: What is the personality type of your church?
Of course this will require some generalizing and speculation, and it would be interesting to have several people from the same church diagnose the personality type of the congregation.
In addition to answering the first question, I wonder if some of you could also mention how you arrived at your conclusion? Did you base it on the personality of the senior pastor? How much of a role do you think the leadership of a church has in shaping the personality of the church, or drawing people that already share the leaders' personality traits?
And last, how much of a role does the personality of a congregation (or a person's perception of that congregation) play in a person's decision to attend?
As to how much a leader plays in shaping the personality of the congregation, I think the leader plays a huge role. If the church is largely made up of followers who are not given to independent thinking, they will undoubtedly follow the pastor largely unquestioningly. If however, there's a good balance between follower- and leader-types and those given to independent thinking, that in mind, would be a much more balanced church exhibiting a multitude of types.
ReplyDeleteDr. Phil Douglass has written a book on this: http://www.amazon.com/What-Your-Churchs-Personality-Discovering/dp/1596380225/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319749505&sr=8-1
ReplyDeleteThe Church of Christ as a whole is about as capital TJ as they can come! Our heritage comes largely from Scottish roots - people who are not prone to those unreliable feelings. That is shifting amongst individual congregations where we are learning to trust feelings (and the Holy Spirit) more and, like in our congregation, where we have swung hard towards P in reaction to the rules of J church life.
ReplyDeleteI would say that my congregation -- Evangelical church with Baptist affiliations that mainly caters to Adults in their 20's-30's is definitely an EST- congregation.
ReplyDeleteMy explanations are as follows:
Extroversion because there is great emphasis on community activities, community fellowship, community this, community that and very LOUD music. As one with a strong preference for Introversion, I find this rather overwhelming at times and need to skip church services some time when it becomes too much.
Sensor mainly because sermons focus on particular details in rather arduous detail and process information sequentially. As one with a strong iNtuitive personality, I find this approach rather tedious -- kind of like analyzing a trip from New York to Los Angeles inch by inch without ever raising one's head to look at the landscape of broader themes.
Thinking because the approach in preaching is very rational and heavily focused on doctrine and theology. Since I have a preference for Thinking, this fits for me.
Despite these differences, I think it is a very accepting congregation and I've decided that it is a good place -- afterall no church is perfect.
I went to a program last summer that included work with a "spiritual type sorter" (from Corrine Ware's Discover Your Spiritual Type) with some correlation to MBTI types. My "soul type" (mystical) was the one that matched up with my MBTI type (INFJ), and its "Christian ethos" was said to match with Orthodox and Anglican churches, which I figured was appropriate what with me being an Episcopalian.
ReplyDeleteWhile I was in my inquirers' seminar (confirmation class), though, we talked about the Episcopal Church/Anglicanism as being rather P-type (hard sometimes for us J-types).
I guess I sort of think of TEC as an introverted church (but that might be projection; all churches are extraverted in some capacity, I think) -- it's fairly meditative, quiet... until coffee hour, anyway.
To put this all together into one type, though... I don't know. Interesting question!
That's a hard one, but I think perhaps INFP (I'm Eastern Orthodox)
ReplyDeleteIntroverted because our idea of celebrating a great feast day is to stand quietly in one place for four hours while the choir chants ancient texts, after which two thirds of the people leave immediately.
INtuitive because noetic experience is hugely important.
I'm not sure about the next one -- I'd say theologically thinking/intuitive, and feeling regarding "economia" -- how the laws or theology are active here, now, in these particular people.
And Perceiving... there's a reason why we sometimes describe ourselves more as "dis-organized religion," and when people try to understand difficult theological problems, they immediately go to the hymns, prayers, and liturgies to untangle the depth of what we believe.
Oh, about the other questions:
ReplyDeleteIn Orthodox churches nationality of origin plays a much bigger role in determining temperament than the particular personality of the priest or bishop, though that does influence things a little. A Russian tradition church will almost certainly be more strict and "judging" (in the MBTI sense) than a Greek church, which will probably be warmer and rather more "extroverted."
There are people who first found the Orthodox church because they were tired of rock bands and extemporaneous worship, and others who have left because it's too long, stern, and cool.
As per individual parishes, it does a little, but in America there isn't very much "choice," because there are rather few parishes -- there again ethnic background and language usually play the larger role.
We could probably also say that the more authoritarian the leader, the more likely he (it's usually a "he" in that case) is to shape the personality of the church.
ReplyDeleteThat's true, Adam, because it's in the nature of authoritarians to have people follow a certain way (their way). But that's why I said if the church is full of followers, because an authoritarian pastor in a church with a good amount of independent thinkers will constantly have a fight on their hands and will probably end up moving on because they couldn't get their way.
ReplyDelete