No matter what your passion is—business, technology, science, or plumbing—this practical guide will enable you to unleash your innate creative skills based on your unique personality type and succeed in everything you do. Everyone has the power to create, but it’s up to you to use your personality type to discover, develop, and deliver on your creative potential. With interactive elements and pages to keep track of your progress, Creative You provides all the tools and advice you need to succeed in an increasingly competitive world.

Written by Otto Kroeger and David B Goldstein
Expected publication: July 2nd 2013 by Atria Books/Beyond Words

Chief among the values they list is self-understanding. When we apply the capacities most suited to our own temperament and outlook, our ministries are more rewarding and we perform more effectively. Oswald and Kroeger point out, however, that “type should never be an excuse.” Nevertheless, the type indicator can help us know what activities most de-energize us and most require help from others.

Other values include understanding others (we can appreciate people whose gifts and temperaments are the opposite to ours, rather than wish they were different); mobilizing church volunteers (we can help others see what most motivates them and offer opportunities to engage in these ministries); and spiritual guidance that’s attuned to the need for a variety of disciplines and approaches to prayer.

What resources can support you as you learn about and apply personality type in your congregation? In addition to the items listed at the end of the article, please consider the resources and products of the CPP organization as well as information from the Myers & Briggs Foundation.

What are your stories and thoughts on this topic? And what resources do you suggest? We look forward to hearing from you.

Myers-Briggs – Starting my immersion, I am a Qualified Myers-Briggs Facilitator trained personally by Otto Kroeger.

That is like learning the Theory of Relativity from Einstein.

http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/

When I facilitate I selected from some of Otto’s prime presentation slides and I use those without deviation from the purety of the information, without my interjected ego and the material is so brilliant that it does not need any garnishment.  The results are vividly apparent, “Seeing is Indeed Believing”.

A passion of mine since 1985,  which is when I purchased the book that Otto actually signed for me.

So there is a small circle of “old friends” who need to send their MBTI material to me so I can help you.

I guarantee you will find the information eye opening, instant results you can see and the gains keep coming after the stimulus is gone.

It’s not free, It is only for people who are SERIOUS about leveraging their mind in order to enrich their lives.

I would appreciate the opportunity to demonstrate my skills for you.

If you like what you read, share with someone you care about...if you know anyone who you respect in the field of Taxation please connect us.

With Warmest Regards,

Russ Moon

Executive Search, Taxation

Richmond, Virginia

Rebekah has also been struggling on and off with a headache over the weekend and today. Thankfully, it had disappeared by bedtime. Hopefully she is on the way up, and Mark will be before too long. It isn’t how they’d want to spend half term.

All of which means I haven’t done that much today. However, one theme of my sabbatical is meant to be about faith and technology. Really it’s bottom of the list, ‘do something on this if I have time’. Yet I’ve found more than one blogger (Brother Maynard was one of the most recent) point to an interesting article by Kevin Kelly called Amish Hackers. This is fascinating. Kelly debunks the popular image of the Amish as hostile to technology. The Old Order Amish may fit that image to a large degree, but it isn’t true of all Amish streams, he says. What does he say? Here are some important themes.

Firstly, the Amish tend to use technology without owning it. Someone who is part of the Amish community but who works outside (there isn’t enough work on all the farms for them all) may well hire a car or a taxi to get to and from work. There are even Amish websites, often put together in local libraries.

When I first read this, I thought it was a hypocritical stance: we don’t want to own something, but we want to get all the benefits. However, on reflection, I think they are trying to enshrine an important point. It’s the problem of possessions and idolatry. That which we possess often ends up possessing us. Have they found a way to guard against temptations to idolatry? Someone somewhere still has to own the car or computer, but they do seem to be onto something important. 

Secondly, their attitude to technology is not so much negative as cautious. They do not assume that new inventions are automatically bad. Instead, some Amish who are excited by an invention will go to their bishops and ask for permission to trial it. The bishops will often let them in order that the technology may be evaluated to see whether it would benefit the community. They have been trialling mobile phones since 1999, and the bishops could still say ‘no’. If the bishops do decide something would be harmful, the early adopters have to relinquish it.

What’s important about this? It’s the emphasis upon community, that much-overused-yet-sucked-of-its-meaning word in other Christian circles. The well-being (shalom?) of the community is paramount. Individual preferenes have to be subsumed to the church. The initial objection to cars a hundred years ago was about the danger of unbridled mobility in taking people away from enriching the local community: they would not shop locally or visit the sick on Sunday. I don’t think this is the way Marxism despises the individual in favour of the society to the point that people are but cogs in the machine, but it is a profound sense that we are not merely redeemed individuals, we are called into a redeemed community. 

As Kelly observes, we haven’t seen any evidence of widespread social relinquishment in broader society. He realises it isn’t simply about a mass boycott (we’ve seen them, albeit not generally permanent), but also mutual support. The Amish have a closeness of relationship in order to provide that, too. Social relinquishment is very difficult in a technological-consumerist society as ours, even in a recession. 

Not only that, there is a process of discernment going on here that goes beyond the wooden application of texts by some fundamentalists. You can query how long the bishops take to evaluate not only the usefulness but also the goodness of an invention, and it does – according to Kelly – put the Amish about fifty years behind the rest of society. However, this is a serious attempt to find the mind of Christ.

Have a look at the article for yourself. Do offer your comments here. I think it’s intriguing. Naturally, as a lover of technology, I think the Amish are too cautious, but my image of them has changed radically and I have to admire their profoundly Christian values that they bring to the subject. 

One last thing before signing off. Next week is my second trip as part of the sabbatical, when I shall be visiting Trinity College, Bristol to study ministry and personality type. I began dipping into one book I already have that touches on the subject, Knowing Me Knowing You by Malcolm Goldsmith and Martin Wharton. At the end of the introduction, they mention two books that have shaped their thinking: Prayer and Temperament by Chester P Michael and Marie C Norrisey and Personality Type And Religious Leadership by Roy M Oswald and Otto Kroeger. Goldsmith and Wharton’s book was published in 1993, so these other two titles will be older. Does anybody know them and are they any good? Michael and Norrisey’s book has two good reviews on Amazon, and seems to be written from a Catholic perspective. Likewise, Oswald and Kroeger get one five-star review. 

Does anyone know any other decent works in this field? Searching on Amazon uncovered Who We are is How We Pray: Matching Personality and Spirituality by Charles J Keating. It also found Prayer Life: How Your Personality Affects the Way You Pray by Pablo Martinez. However, while personality type and prayer is helpful and interesting, my primary focus is about ministry and leadership issues in relation to personality type. 

The course at Trinity uses the Myers Briggs Type Indicator as its basis, so work connected to that approach would be especially helpful. However, if you know material that comes from other approaches, particularly that of Hans Eysenck, I’d be quite interested, too.

I mentioned this theme before on Day 5 of the sabbatical, but didn’t make any particular appeal regarding literature, and it provoked some helpful comments, and Tess Giles recommended some reading on the Enneagram. However, this time I want to appeal a little more specifically regarding literature on the ministry and personality issue, especially looking at Myers Briggs, whether favourable or critical. Thanks for any help you can offer.