You’d think that a Christian, who also holds a bachelor’s and master’s in psychology would have thought of this: apply Myers-Briggs typology to church ministry. But nope, I’m not that bright!

For those unfamiliar with the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI), it is widely-used to place people into one of 16 different personality types based on four different aspects of behavior. As with most such tests, each personality type has a particular set of likes and dislikes.

Hirsh and Kise (the authors of SoulTypes) take it a step further and list how each personality type would prefer to deepen their faith. For some it’s doing outreach or mission work. For others it’s practicing religious rituals from the Christian faith tradition. For still others it could be innovative ways of learning about God.

If you’ve ever wondered why the things that “trip your trigger” religiously don’t seem to interest your fellow parishioners and church members, here’s the answer: They don’t have the same personality type as you! I think this answers the question as to why some of us are Methodists; some are Catholics and some are Assembly of God. We all find meaning in certain traditions, innovations and service characteristic of these denominations.

However, we should remember that not everyone in our churches neatly fits into the denomination’s normal practices and we should try to have a wide variety of opportunities for people to find that meaning for themselves. While this is a huge programming challenge, particularly for small churches, it would probably attract more people into our sanctuaries who have traditionally been irritated by some of our insistence on doing things a certain way.

I felt that Hirsh and Kise made this book more complicated than it had to be and that much of it was very formulaic and repetitive writing (probably because my personality type likes innovation!), but the information is valuable in thinking through how one can effectively minister to a wide variety of personality types.

You don’t need to be a shrink type like me to be familiar with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which breaks down personality characteristics into 16 types, based on 4 scales with extremes at either end. Honestly? I have not been a huge fan of Myers-Briggs in the past. My type never really seemed to define me well.

Until now.

HeartPaths feels that it is patently wrong to “program” how people build and form a relationship with God unless personality types are taken into account and there is programming for a lot of different types of people. A book called SoulTypes addresses how the Myers-Briggs test can be used to indicate how different personality types might need different kinds of spiritual practices and different kinds of worship.

I was excited about this book in the beginning, probably because of the psych background, but the writing style drove me nuts. It was a little too formulaic for me and I kept re-writing it in my head (a chronic disease if you are a writer or blogger!). But the recommendations for my particular soul type were right on target…now.