Book Review: Discover Your Spiritual Type

Discover Your Spiritual Type, by Corrine Ware

So...this was a semi-interesting book.  I say semi-interesting because we've all done the personality inventories and "spiritual gift quizzes" "love language tests" and blah blah blah.  If you have a decent sense of self from those, you can probably guess what the "spiritual type analysis" is going reveal. 

Ware uses the work of Urban T. Holmes as a jumping off point for not only identifying and discussing "spiritual type", but also drafting a "quiz" that will tell you which of the four types you primarily identify as, which are types of strong but not primary affiliation, and which types you don't identify with.  The most interesting and helpful part of this inventory is her encouragement that you take the inventory not just for  yourself, but also "for" your congregation - in other words, is what's going on in your congregation aligning with your "spiritual type"?

I think this is a good way of asking - or at least starting to think about - how pastors and other leaders connect worship and other congregational activities to our parishioners.  For example, if half the people in your congregation are "Affective-Apophatic" (Mystics) and you're constantly dragging them to "service projects" so they can "get closer to God", you're not really going to be leading them in the growth of their faith - and not because they don't care about helping the less fortunate.  And that's what this book does really well - encourages us to look at our type, and the type most "supported" in our congregation (that we're a part of, or that we're leading), and then offers some strategies for stretching and growing, and also encouraging further depth in your primary area. 

Helpful, probably, if you're looking to jumpstart your spirituality, or that of your congregation.