My personality type (INFP) has sometimes been a source of shame for me. For instance, one year at our district council a man stood touting the value of assessments for church planters, because, he said, “we wouldn’t want to have a introvert as a church planter.” What does that mean for me, an introverted intuitive feeling perceiving type of guy, who feels called to plant churches? That introversion part is the one that causes me the most consternation, and at times I have found it debilitating to ministry. It is also what disposes me to contemplation and solitude. I have often said that being of postmodernity makes me able to hold opposing thoughts in tension. Perhaps that is helped along by my personality, always looking for the mystery in life, much more comfortable posing questions than in imposing stark black and white answers. This has made me at home with the mystics. Being disposed to feeling, I have taken ministry as a pastor to mean caring about my people and encouraging them to find their way to the depths in Christ. The perceptivity of my personality perhaps gives a bit of extroversion to my feeling and caring that otherwise wouldn’t be there.
This study has led me again to thank God for the personality he has given me. As
Mulholland suggests, I do need to nurture my shadow side. My personality isn’t a license to avoid what I find difficult or bothersome.
In Holy Longing, Rolheiser suggests much the same, as the soul finds its life in both order and chaos.
He says, “Given this background, we see that the question of what makes our souls healthy or unhealthy is very complex because, on any given day, we might need more integration rather than energy, or vise versa. To offer one simple example: If I am feeling dissipated, unsure of who I am and what my life means, I am probably better off reading Jane Austen than Robert Waller, watching Sense and Sensibility rather than The Bridges of Madison County, and spending some time in solitude rather than socializing. Conversely though, if I feel dead inside and cannot find enthusiasm for living, I might want to reverse the menu. Some things help give us fire and certain things help us more patiently carry life’s tensions. Both have their place in spiritual life.”
In this way I identify more with Mary than her sister Martha. I would find great peace, contentment and joy, sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to him talk. In fact it would no doubt pour gasoline on the fire within, driving me to madness. I might have to jump up, if he paused, and pace about. I might bump into Martha, I’d try to help in my excited state, but I’d pick up an apple and instead of pealing it I’d prattle on about what Jesus had said, and forgetting myself, start to eat the apple. Martha would think that I’m just in the way.
I am a dreamer. I die inside with out a dream, a vision of God. I couldn’t go on making dinner if he was there in the other room, maybe if he came into the kitchen I’d be all right, Jesus, Brother Lawrence and I making dinner! The downside is that sometimes I can’t focus on the details that bring dreams into reality. I can get frustrated when my visions of what God can do in me and through me aren’t realized. I need discipline to be a good Mary.
I grew up as a Pastor’s Kid in the Assemblies of God. The Charismatic stream has been a strong part of my upbringing. I knew the immediacy of God in Sunday night services with old folks faces buried in the pews. I’d go around with my dad and pray for them, laying my little hands on their posteriors. Gifts of tongues and interpretation were commonplace in those services. I grew up loving hymns some of which were camp songs from the days of Pentecostal revival at the turn of the last century. I also grew up loving the modern choruses and expressions of worship, singing the praises of a God who was near and soon coming. Strangely enough though, Pentecostals are a pragmatic bunch, and it is only recently that I have seen the mystical value of the gifts of the Spirit.
Growing up –My spiritual heritage and home were like a baptism into the things of God.
It was around me every day. I don’t remember a time that I did not love Jesus. My parents tell me I was five when I asked Jesus into “my pocket.” I have memories of those days, walking around our garden singing songs to Jesus until I forgot what it was I was singing. I felt called into ministry when I was six or seven, we had an evangelist, Curt Zastrow come to our church; he was an evangelist just for kids. I felt God calling me to minister to children too. It wasn’t until I was nine that I realized that his mercy covered my sins and I didn’t have to start over every time I sinned. Shortly after that, kid’s camp at Lake Geneva in Minnesota, I began to overflow with the Spirit, as I experienced what we Pentecostals term the baptism in the Spirit.
Formation at College – I began to really explore my spirituality and imagine new ways of doing things.
College really opened my mind. It must be a common occurrence; my black and white view of truth and scripture took a shaking. I was disconcerted to think that Matthew wasn’t the first to write his gospel; after all he’s the first on in the New Testament. Biblical criticism and exegesis quickly became a passion that strengthened my devotion. I learned to slow down, and learn all that God had for me, and more importantly who he made me to be.
Celebrating Discipline – I began to become.
During some time off from college I began to hunger for something deeper and for discipline in my life. A friend of mine suggested that we read Celebration of Discipline together. I had skimmed it for a course in college, but as we read it together it kicked my butt. Every word seemed to breathe truth into my soul. I began to try to find ways to bring the children I was ministering to into the depths as well, this lead to a transformation in my style of ministry. I came to realize that the children needed their families as a structure for discipleship, and as families we need each other in the structure of the church. I started to envision a church uniquely created to meet these needs. I began to look to the other streams of Christian experience, greatly influence again by Foster. My wife laughs at me because any denomination I am exposed to, I say I want to be that. Really I want to be it all, I want to be a Christian!
At this point in my life I see myself like the servant in the shadows behind the father in Rembrandt’s painting of the prodigal son. I desire with my whole being to be my Father’s servant and see people come to him and embrace him, entering into his depth of love. I want to be lost in the shadows cast by his glory.
where Mack experiences the mutual adoration at the dinner table between Papa and Jesus. This is beautiful stuff to me, and I am invited into the adoration by the curious property of icons, the reverse perspective. The depth is flipped in on itself. The perspective puts me within the image, turning my head, and my soul inside out. To stare at it prayerfully means that I descend into my heart, where, as Simeon the New Theologian says, I encounter the Triune Mystery waiting for me.
