So, I’m an I-S-T-J personality type, my preferred spiritual style is ‘word’ and I’m an auditory learner… or am I? There’s been a lot researched and written in recent times about the labels that might describe who we are as people and how we best function in life. However as I grow older, I am finding all this increasingly puzzling and worrying!
Once I have taken that Myers-Briggs test, explored my Enneagram, answered the questionnaire about my spiritual styles and identified my learning preferences, is that really me? And does this verdict offer me a liberating self-description or an imprisoning sentence on how I was, am and always will be?
As I look back, I believe that I have changed and am still changing. Maybe it was the education system that I experienced which deceived me into thinking I only learn best through a didactic talk, by reading other people’s ideas or from a structured debate. The truth is, of course, that there is a whole spectrum of ways to learn which, to be honest, I am only just encountering now in the second half of my life.
It is the insights of poetry, the wordless impact of art, the beauty of silence, the non-verbal world of reflective storytelling and the listening to other people’s stories that have become more important to me. Conversations around doubt rather than certainty, around travelling rather than arriving and around exploring rather than reaching conclusions have opened up new ways of learning, particularly in the realm of faith.
There is no doubt that God has made us all wonderfully individual, shaped by our upbringing, our environment and our education as well as the genes we have inherited. And this gives us a particular personality and preferences, but God never meant these to be fixed. His plan for creation also includes the glorious possibility of evolution and transformation, and this applies to the whole of who we are, not just some spiritual corner of our lives. This transformation comes as we encounter difference –another of God’s great gifts to the world – and this difference can help us grow and change for the better.
This development comes about best in community and for Christians it should happen within the messy togetherness of the gathered church, where all personality types and spiritual styles rub shoulders with each other. This is why I love Messy Church, which celebrates the all-in-it-together value of becoming Christian. This goes beyond simply mixing up the ages. By doing church together like this we are engaging in robust discipleship that is learning to ‘prefer each other’s needs’ in generous service of the other who is different from me but on the same journey of faith.
As I have swum deeper and deeper in this Messy Church togetherness, I find that I have been changed. I am no longer a fixed personality type who is a word-based and auditory learner. I am relearning from toddlers about the importance of touch and taste; I am learning from a young child about wonder at the small things in life and about being passionate about the environment; I am learning from the awkward tweenager to listen to my feelings and from the rebellious teenager to speak my mind and put my faith into action; I am learning from young adults about social justice issues and the struggles of life today; I am learning from those older than me, who offer me the wisdom of experience and the long view on life. I am learning from all these groups who are different from me about how faith can flourish and endure in all ages and stages of life and this is what disciples me. It is this that transforms me slowly into the likeness of Christ, in whom all of humanity finds a home and whose likeness we all long to bear. But this cannot happen if I mix only with those who are in the same ‘box’ as me or who wear the same label, attractively comfortable as that may appear.
The gathered church is God’s tool for us to be changed from one degree of glory into another by his Holy Spirit who dwells in us – all of us together – as his living temple. This is what Messy Church offers me and all of us and why I am so passionate about it.
So, thanks be to God, I am not stuck with an imprisoning description of who I am, but rather, alongside my sisters and brothers in the messy togetherness of Messy Church, I can enjoy and experience new learning preferences, spiritual styles and ways of being. And this is, I believe, God’s messy and exciting plan of discipleship and transformation for all of us.
Martyn Payne is a member of the Messy Church team for BRF, and works with the Diocese of London, helping to setup and support Messy Churches.
Image: “Messy Church” by Dank Spangle is licensed under CC BY 2.0.