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Carl Jung’s theory of psychological type is proving to be a very useful tool in understanding and interpreting strengths and weaknesses in church life. The helps in understanding congregations and worship patterns, as well as clergy and leadership styles.1
    Jung’s theory of psychological type is based on four contrasting opposites. The first contrast is between introversion (I) and extraversion (E). The introvert draws energy from the inner world, while the extravert draws energy from the outer world. The extravert is at home with people and leads from the front. The introvert is at home in his or her own space and leads from within.
    The second contrast is between sensing (S) and intuition (N). The senser is more comfortable with facts and details, while the intuitive is more comfortable with ideas and possibilities. The senser likes stability. The intuitive likes changes.
    The third contrast is between thinking (T) and feeling (F). The thinker is an organisation person, while the feeler is a people person. The thinker is inspired by strategy. The feeler is inspired by harmony.
    The fourth contrast is between judging (J) and perceiving (P). The judger is organised and disciplined, while the perceiver is flexible and spontaneous. The judger likes working in organisations. The perceiver prefers to challenge organisations.

Clergy types - ISFJs
In a study of 427 clergymen in the Church in Wales, Francis, Payne and Jones2 discovered that their preferred type was introversion, sensing, feeling and judging (ISFJ). The personality profile helps to characterise and to explain the model of Christian leadership valued and implemented by many parish clergy within the Church in Wales.
    First and foremost, church members and parishioners will be pastored and nurtured with care and sensitivity. Leadership is there to promote human wellbeing rather than to implement strategy or develop slick organisational skills. Feeling dominates over thinking.
    Second, leadership will focus on working with individuals or small groups rather than with large groups. A quiet family atmosphere will emerge in preference to outreach and contact with strangers. Introversion dominates over extraversion.
    This kind of leadership excels in a highly feminised environment which so well describes many local churches where women generally outnumber men two to one. But this is also an environment which puzzles and may even alienate many men who are used to a very different type of leadership in the work-place. There in the work-place the successful manager so often presents the mirror image of the personality profile of the clergymen. In that environment extraversion and thinking reign supreme.
    The finding that men engaged in pastoral ministry tend to prefer feeling over thinking is not confined to the one study among Anglican clergy in Wales. For example, MacDaid, McCaulley and Kainz3, drawing on a sample of 1,298 Roman Catholic priests in the United States of America found that 80% preferred feeling and 20% preferred thinking. Oswald and Kroeger4, using a sample of 1,247 male clergy from a range of denominations in the United States of America found that 68% preferred feeling and 32% preferred thinking.

Missionary trainee types - ESTJs
    So what happens to the extraverted thinking men called to leadership within the Christian community? If they do not go into local church ministry, where do they go? Their location has been identified in a new study by Craig, Horsfall and Francis5 into the psychological type profile of 92 male evangelical missionary personnel training in England. This time the preferred type emerged as extraversion, sensing, thinking and judging (ESTJ). These data suggest that the demands of the mission field may call out very different qualities of leadership from the demands of parish ministry.

Implications
    At its most basic Jungian psychological type theory helps us to understand that the personality profile of the people recruited into Christian ministry goes a long way to shaping the model of Christian leadership we can hope to see in our local churches, in para-church organisations and in the mission field.
    Once, however, ministry in the United Kingdom becomes reconceptualised in terms of growing new churches and developing new para-church initiatives (rather than pastoring ever dwindling, aging and feminised congregations), then the leadership qualities prized by the churches’ selection criteria may also need to be revisited.
 

Rev Prof Leslie J Francis
Director, Welsh National Centre for Religious Education and Professor of Practical Theology, University of Wales, Bangor


Notes

1 For an up-to-date discussion see L.J. Francis, Faith and Psychology, London, Darton, Longman and Todd, 2005.
2 L.J. Francis, V.J. Payne and S.H. Jones, Psychological types of male Anglican clergy in Wales, Journal of Psychological Type, 56, 19-23, 2001.
3 G.P. Macdaid, M.H. McCaulley and R.I. Kainz, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: atlas of type tables, Gainesville, Florida, Centre for Application of Psychological Type Inc, 1986.
4 R.M. Oswald and O. Kroeger, Personality Type and Religious Leadership, Washington, DC, The Alban Institute, 1988.
5 C.L. Craig, T Horsfall and L.J. Francis, Psychological types of male evangelical missionary personnel training in England: a role for thinking type men? Pastoral Psychology, 53, 475-482, 2005.

Psychological type of male church leaders by group

                                                    I or E        S or N         T or F         J or P
                                                    %     %     %     %         %    %       %    %
________________________________________________________________________
Church in Wales (N= 427)          59    41     57    43        31    69      68    32

Missionary personnel (N = 92)    45    55     65    35        70    30      75    25
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