Personality Type And Religious Leadership

Combining pastoral and behavioral science expertise, the authors spell out ways type and temperament theory illuminate the clergy role. Learn how to use the 16 Myers-Briggs personality types to recognize and affirm your gifts, work with your liabilities, and understand and accept those with whom you minister. "Being a parish pastor is a very complex role. Our mission in this book is to make that task a little less complex and a little more fun by looking at our congregations through the lens of the MBTI." -- The authors

In Personality, Religion, and Leadership, Christopher F. J. Ross and Leslie J. Francis illustrate how Jungian archetypes can help religious leaders understand and deal with their personal spiritual journeys in times of stress and success and build strong religious communities that contain a diverse array of psychological types.

Over a period of years, Donald Smith probed, analyzed, interpreted, and reinterpreted data pertaining to what makes for effective ministry. Through all his research, one fact kept emerging: Pastors who focus on empowering others are recognized as the most effective in their ministry. Empowering Ministry distills the best information about cultivating an effective ministry stance from the voices of several hundred highly effective congregational leaders, offering readers the benefit of many lifetimes of pastoral experience. Smith deals extensively with how pastors empower others, as well as with how they have been and continue to be empowered themselves. He also discusses the requisite skills needed for motivating and energizing others. The book offers a realistic look at life in the ministerial pressure cooker and confronts the issues of stress and burnout. Specific steps the reader can take to grow and nurture an effective ministry are included. Empowering Ministry is for pastors who are enriching their work, for the seminary student preparing for ministry, and for anyone working closely with their pastors in a quest for maximum pastoral effectiveness.

The purpose of this book is to enable Christian leaders to understand their psychological type, using the MBTI (Myers-Briggs) personality indicator, and to use this information to generate new insights into their own experience and performance. It will enable leaders to develop better strategies to maximise their strengths and to work with their recognised weaknesses. A significant amount of stress is experienced by Christian leaders. This book will help them to focus on those aspects of their work that are energising and life-giving. Part One of the book introduces the theories of psychological type and how these apply to Christian leaders. Part Two include detailed profile descriptions of each of the 16 MBTI personality types and explores the 'comfort zone' for that type and difficulties experienced by that type 'outside of the comfort zone.' Each type description is written with the role of the Christian leader in mind and covers aspects of their role, eg their experiences of worship, prayer, pastoral responsibilities, administration and working with others.

Which biblical leader most closely reflects your personality traits? Almost everyone has taken online- or social-media-based personality profile tests and quizzes. Have you ever considered if (or if so, how) your specific personality type compares to a specific character in the Bible? A Personality Portrait is a book about you. This book will help you to better understand yourself as well as your specific personality type. You can do this by taking a free online personality profile test and then comparing your personality type to the detailed profiles created for many characters in the Bible. You will also be able to compare the personality traits of your friends, family members, and colleagues. Encourage them to take the test so they can join you on this journey of discovery! You will be able to find commonalities between your specific personality type and those of well-known characters from the Bible, such as Daniel, Joseph, Elisha, Elijah, Jacob, and King David, as well as Peter, Paul, and John. There are more than sixteen complete personality profiles from which you can choose. Among the many benefits that you will receive from reading this book, not only will you develop a much clearer understanding of yourself and your personality type, but you will also gain an ability to develop more fulfilling interpersonal and professional relationships with others, recognizing personality traits that exist in them by comparing them to these well-known biblical characters.

Pastor & author, Lynne Baab "offers readers a useful tool to understand both their own spiritual journeys and their role in the life of their chosen spiritual community". The book "...provides a basic understanding of the concepts of psychological type and then builds upon them with applications to real-life issues...".

Why do people disagree about scripture? Why, when two people are asked what they find of importance in a bible passage, are they likely to come up with different answer?Using the Myers Briggs Type Indicator to analyse possible responses to St Mark's Gospel, Leslie Francis shows how, in finding our own preferred pattern of spirituality, not only how to broaden and deepen our understanding of the gospels, but also increase our sensitivity to others. Offering insights into the responses of different personality types, this disciplined approach is an invaluable contribution to the methodologies both of bible study and of preaching.

Comprising a selection of contemporary state of the art research that focuses on psychological type, religion, and culture, this book can be divided into two particular areas of research. The first section focuses on the religion and psychological type of Church leaders, while the second section reports on Church members, their religion, and their psychological type. The book attests to the importance of Jungian Psychological Type theory in understanding individual differences in religiosity within a variety of samples. Authored by a wide range of international scholars, employing a wide range of measures, among diverse samples and in a variety of different cultures, this research provides an important contribution to current and future research. It facilitates future research work in the area outside of the white, Anglo-Saxon, Anglophone, Christian context on which it has traditionally been focused. This book was originally published as a double special issue of the Mental Health, Religion & Culture journal.