SHAPE - Week of April 17 - 23

This week we are introducing Personality; so that we can better understand how God wired our personalities.

For Next Week: be sure to complete your Experiences Reflection (pages 32–35 in your book) before your group meets during the week of April 24–30.

Personality Tests:
Realize that personality tests such as the Keirsey Temperament sorter are not perfect tools*. They are accurate with the majority of people, but may not distinguish weak preferences even when that weak preference clearly leads us to a specific temperament. Ultimately, you can become sure of the best fit of your temperament and personality preferences through a self discovery process much like determining your spiritual gifts. Observe yourself over a period of time and compare to the descriptions—first the temperament descriptions then the personality preferences.

To help get an accurate assessment, keep the following in mind as you take the test:

• answer quickly, more with your reaction than with studied answers
• if you contemplate a question, try to consider what seems most natural as opposed to something less natural that you have learned to do or something you believe is right, moral, biblical, etc. (the questions are not intended to address right or wrong, or moral issues)
• if some of the words are unfamiliar, look them up in a dictionary
• remember that the goal is to identify your innate type or temperament; it is counter-productive to answer questions to avoid identifying preferences you feel could be a weakness—the idea is to identify any preferences that could lead to a weakness so you are better equipped to not fall prey to that weakness.

You might get a little insight into the different types if you read these 16 prayers that they might have spoken.
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*About the accuracy, notice that this is the second version of Keirsey’s test, as he tries to improve the accuracy. Also, the widely used MBTI test includes trial questions not used in the analysis, but just being studied with an eye toward future improvement of that test’s accuracy.

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