After someone takes a personality assessment for the first time, people tend to respond one of two ways.
The first will read the results and use it as a lens to see themselves within the world. They’ll identify with some parts of it while questioning other parts. Then they will carry that knowledge with them and use it to be better aware of their individual strengths and weaknesses. They’ll feel better equipped to handle situations outside of their comfort zone and be better prepared for interacting with others.
They begin to see their individual traits as part of a larger body and that insight gives them better confidence when venturing into new situations. They use it to help build bridges over relational gaps and set healthy boundaries. They use it as a way to grow closer to others because they understand themselves a bit better.
The other type of person doesn’t do that.
The other type uses it as an excuse for their own behavior. They flip the lens to show the world who they are. You hear this when someone says “Don’t cross a Scorpio” or “That’s just what 2’s do”.
Personality profiles do not define you. They are just a standardized method for giving insight into tendency and probability. That’s all.
Allowing anything to define you is detrimental for a handful of reasons. It’s one way we venture into a subtle form of tribalism. Tribalism feels good in the beginning since we instantly feel connected to others that share similar traits. Be they an enneagram number, profile letters, political party, or religious preferences. Commonalities combine – and sometimes differences disconnect.
… and that’s dangerous territory.
Personality Testing Doesn’t Define You
Using any kind of system to define you – personality, astrological sign, sexuality, activist party, etc – can become dangerous when you identify with a party, you might find yourself defending the definition and not yourself. Those can be incredibly difficult to separate since we might connect with our tribe on an intimate level. So any attack on it is considered an attack on the individual.
This type of assimilation can quickly create “social landmines” and create distance. Those landmines are difficult to navigate because tribes aren’t people. They can be pristine examples of whatever utopian construct we need them to be in that moment. Have you ever tried reasoning with someone who has firmly held views on anything? You may as well talk to a wall. Sometimes, it feels like you’re gambling with your relationship with them.
Few things feel as bad as losing a relationship over a conflict of opinion.
Systems Can Hide a Lie
Another reason we don’t want to allow something to define us is because it can perpetuate a lie.
I’m talking about anyone who has uttered this phrase: “I’m just not a ________ person.”
The truth is in Philippians 4:13 where Paul writes, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” That’s the truth. Whatever you have filled in the blank with in the past; it’s just an excuse. You have the ability and the authority to change. You are powerful and strong warriors if you chose to be. You are co-laborers designed to work alongside an all-powerful God that loves you truly and deeply. So don’t put yourself in a box. That’s just your comfort zone talking.
This includes being outgoing for a night when you’re an introvert. Being slow to anger when you’re an Aries. Being compassionate, kind, and understanding even when the people around you might not deserve it. We all have the capacity to do good things even when we may not have to proclivity or nature to do them.
We all have the potential. That’s the beautiful thing about humanity.
We are empowered to fill that gap with whatever is needed for that moment or season of life. That’s why we should never “fill in the blank”. The only blank you need to fill are “I am forgiven.” and “I am redeemed“. Then refil that blank with whatever is needed for the day. You’ve been given the authority to ask God for that.
Discover Your Proclivity
Now that we’ve put the guardrails in place, we can start to talk about how using personality profiles fits into communities and small groups.
If you came from our post on How to Prepare a Christian Testimony, you’ll see we’re trying to prepare you for community. Whether that’s with a CircleUP small group or not. These guides are intended to point you toward your own faith journey in hopes of generating safe spaces for small groups to flourish and individuals feeling more knit together. Our passion is building and connecting small groups around the commonality of Christ and helping the individual see their value within a larger group.
Personality assessments are just a small part of that.
For all the cautionary messaging written in the beginning of this article, I don’t want to lose sight of the potential good that can come from profiles. Remember that first type of person that used their new wisdom to bridge relational gaps and grow closer to others? That’s the kind of individual we’re hoping to create in our small group process.
If you’re curious which personality assesment to start with, we would point toward the Enneagram first since it’s more relational in nature. Myers-Briggs is still a gold standard for anyone to pursue while DISC and Strengthsfinders have a more professional swing to them. The key when building groups is just to use the same style. So if you have an MBTI group, take an MBTI assesment. One isn’t any “better” than the other.
There are tons of different assesment types. Some of which are required before joining a CircleUP small group. Some of those include the following:
- Personality Types – (eg: Myers Briggs, Enneagram, etc)
- Temperament Traits – (eg: Strengthsfinder, DISC, etc)
- Spiritual Gifting – (eg: Five Folds, Spiritual Roots, etc)
The CircleUP Church Process
If you’ve read the other articles where we define Christianity and prepare your testimony, you’ll notice we want to make sure the individual takes the time to gain a deeper understanding of themsevles before we put them in a group. That’s benificial for a couple reasons.
The first reason is because it reduces the natural tendency we have to adapt ourselves in order to “fit in”. That’s not a bad thing – but the communities we want to develop flip that script. We want to build communities that let you know you’re accepted because Christ already accepted you. Think about how much more transparent you are willing to be once you genuinely feel that?
The second reason is because identifying the parts of Christ’s body allow us to highlight the unique roles each person brings to the larger community. By identifying and encouraging what roles each person plays, the individual gets more confidence when stepping into those unique roles. Even if it’s their first time.
After that, we connect them to a community where their temperment is permitted, their personality can show and their faith can be ignited or restored.. This is where we’re spending most of our development time since accumulating the scientific data for what makes a community “tick” has its hurdles; but we believe with enough time and transparency, those answers can help future communites form, function and thrive.
Think of it like planting a garden. There are many factors that go into gardening. From the soil density, nutrition, composition, sunlight, climate, pestalince… Each factor makes a difference and forming a group is a similar idea. There’s really no way of knowing with any certainty how well a garden will grow – but there are a handful of things we can do to encourage deeper roots are being formed.
Some examples we would love to find include statements like this:
- Relational groups tend to grow through diversity and thrive with commonality.
- Service groups tend to grow through purpose and thrive with achievement.
- Support groups tend to grow through transparency and thrive with trust.
You get the idea. We hope to empower communities by providing resources that encourage building those strong relationships over time and improve group resilience. (That’s fancy talk for “We want to help people build strong relationships.”)
To be clear, this also doesn’t mean everyone has to be lifelong friends. It just means the friends you make in a CircleUP group should be the kind you feel comfortable asking to help you move or bring you soup when you’re sick. That’s community.
So if you’re interested in seeing where this goes, please consider subscribing to our newsletter or following us on Twitter. You can even check out our Help Wanted page for any items we currently need help with. Those needs will vary from being an advocate that helps us circulate updates to financial sponsors that help us acieve our reach goals. Oh! Not to mention small group leaders.
Thanks for reading and we look forward to building better communities together. Be blessed!