Myers-Briggs - tosh or not?

People keep asking (requiring) me to take Myers-Briggs tests.  It's supposed to tell you about your personality and the insights that it gives can be pretty interesting.  In fact, as a method of description it's pretty good and I would have no real problems with it except that the whole basis of the system is, in my (not so humble admittedly) opinion, totally flawed.

If you've not heard of it before, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) asks you a load of questions from which it is possible to establish your preferences on four scales: Extrovert/Introvert, Sensing/iNtuition, Thinking/Feeling and Perceiving/Judging.  The results give you a four letter Type, which has a description that is often quite spookily accurate.

So far, so dull.  What's the problem?  On top of the obvious 'you can't fit everyone in the world into 16 boxes' problem, Myers-Briggs is predicated on the idea that your personality is simply who you are and that every preference is equally valid so it doesn't matter what they are or why they are that way.

For example, I exhibit a lot of behaviours at the P end of the spectrum.  If you're not MBTI literate (lucky you!), that's essentially saying I work at the last minute, I need pressure to motivate me and planning something weeks in advance just doesn't isn't my cup of tea.

Over the years I have paid a price for acting like this.  Work that is squeezed into a very small time is rarely my best.  So when I don't do my best I can blame the failure on the lack of time thus protecting myself from anything too difficult.  My P preference is a defence mechanism.  There are people at the other end of the scale who must be totally in control of everything and have all the details tied down months in advance of anything.  This is also a sign of a damaged person, probably also a fear of failure.  A healthy person probably comes somewhere in the middle, planning stuff properly but totally able to be spontaneous or last  minute when life requires (as it often does).

I genuinely believe that the world will be a better place if I'm a little less broekn and can help others find Jesus and become a little less broken too.  MBTI can help, but it's a starting place not an excuse not to change.

Spring Harvest and Anglicans

A lovely cartoon by Dave Walker hosted by the Church Times

Enjoy!!

Choral Evensong

Last night I had the privilege(?) of leading Choral Evensong in the college chapel.  It was certainly an experience.

Choral Evensong is essentially evening prayer using the text from the Book of Common Prayer (1662).  What makes it choral is that much of the service is sung rather than said.

It has some interesting features which you have to get used to, the 17th century language and some of the responses don't seem to follow particularly.  For example, 

The Lord be with you| And with thy spirit 

seems fair enough, but 

O Lord save the Queen| And mercifully hear us when we call upon thee

makes less sense to me.

In college there is a worship rota.  This is compiled by the Warden and so you don't have any real choice about which services you lead.  So whilst Choral Evensong is not at all my tradition, I had to do it anyway.

There are two approaches to it.  One is to let the choir do all the singing, which makes your 'leading the service' role rather symbolic.  I chose to do the full on singing the responses which is scary when you're looking directly at the choir master all the time.

So, how did it go?  Apart from the tuning fork issues, really rather well.  I did wonder whether I would lose everyone at the start because I couldn't get the fork to ring, so I was standing at the front of chapel, wearing cassock and surplice (which is not optional for this service) repeatedly smacking myself on the back of the head with a tuning fork.  Nice. (and yes, there was sniggering)

But we did get there and we did make it to the end.

What did I learn?  Well, I learned that if you hold a tuning fork too tightly it doesn't ring.  But it also reminded me of some of the brokeness I carry and won't put down.

At college, it is seen to be a brave thing to sing the office, and so most people don't.  I really like singing, I know I can do it and I knew I'd be totally fine.  But I built up a sense of nervousness that was out of proportion with reality and sought lots of ego strokes from others to make myself feel better.

When it went well, I was into full on 'false humilty' mode, to get more strokes and feel good about myself.

At least, in the mixture of emotions and motives, these were certainly more present that I would have liked.

When, O when will I learn to just be secure in all that God has made me?  How often do I see in others that same insecurity about who they are that plagues me so often?

Oh, and I learned that whilst I didn't hate it, if I never had to lead a choral evensong again, I wouldn't be sad.

How to become a vicar

I wrote this as an e-mail for the people at work today, and some of them found it a really helpful explanation of the steps to vicaration, my signature on my e-mails points to my blog, so my DDO has also read it and I’ve updated it to reflect his thoughts!

There are three stages to pursuing your dream of wearing a cassock and dog collar.

Discernment
Training and
Curacy (although technically you get your dog collar and cassock after the training stage)

Discernment
Unfortunately, it is not possible simply to speak to your vicar and say “I really think the Lord might be saying I should be a vicar” and that’s that, although that would be the place to start. If your vicar agrees that the Lord might be saying you should join the ranks s/he will start you on the discernment process. What happens next varies from diocese to diocese, but essentially is a process of trying to hear from God and making sure that this is what he wants!

Typically, you have to meet with the Diocesan Director of Ordinands (no wonder everyone calls them the ‘DDO’) who is paid to listen to you and God and work out whether it’s right that you are called to ordained ministry. Usually you will be sent to see someone else too, usually not a vicar. In St Albans, for example, they like to make this person someone who is trained in psychotherapy, in Peterborough Dioecese a lay person who has experience of testing vocation. This is to get another perspective on the hearing process.

Once the DDO is satisfied, they will send you to see the Bishop. The Bishop will chat to you for a while and have read a report about you by the DDO. It is up to the Bishop to make the final decision as to whether you should be allowed to train for vicarhood. If they think you are a likely candidate, they will send you to a Bishop’s Advisory Panel which is a 3 day event where you have 3 interviews, a group exercise and a pastoral letter to write amongst other things. The Bishop’s Advisory Panel then advise the bishop (strangely enough) as to whether you should be trained for vicarness.

The Bishop then decides. He can accept the panel’s advice, or he can ignore it, it’s his choice. If he says yes, you will then start training. From the first conversation with your vicar to this point can (exceptionally) be a few months, is most often at least a year and in St Albans diocese they like to really really know you want to be a vicar, so the process takes around 2 years.

Training
Training takes either 2 or 3 years, depending on your age and whether you have done any formal academic theology in the past. As a rough guide, if you are 30 or older, or you have a degree in theology already you will do 2 years, otherwise it’s 3. That’s all about to get more complicated though as a result of the Hind Report. Usually, training takes place at a Theological College (the Church of England does not call them bible colleges!), and is full time. It is possible to do the training part time over a number of years, but if you’re training to be a full time vicar, you will usually do the training full time.

Curacy
Once you have graduated Theological College you will spend four years doing ‘on the job training’ as a ‘Curate’. Your dream of vicardom is close at hand. At the start of the first year you will be ordained by a Bishop in a Cathedral as a ‘deacon’, which allows you to take services, funerals and baptise people. After you’ve completed your first year you’ll be ordained a second time, but as a ‘priest’ which means you can take a service of holy communion and marry people (I mean take the marriage service rather than get married). Then after the four years is up you can apply for a job running a church of your own!

So, from first thoughts to full on ‘I’m the vicar’ takes around 8 years, it’s not an easy process…