Curious Christian

Reflections on culture, nature, and spirituality from a Christian perspective

Personality and Prayer

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Matt Stone

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After mentioning Ignatian-style meditation in my last comment I thought I was worth drawing attention to a website I came across many moons ago that draws links between Myers-Briggs personality types and preferred prayer styles.

It is suggested that personality type can be related to stages of Lectio Divina:

Reading appeals especially to Sensing-Judging (SJ) types
Meditation appeals especially to iNtuitive-Thinking (NT) types
Prayer appeals to iNtuitive-Feeling (NF) and Sensing-Perceiving (SP)
Contemplation appeals especially to the iNtuitive-Feeling (NF) types

And also to different monastic prayer styles:

Thomistic appeals especially to iNtuitive-Thinking (NT) types
Franciscan appeals especially to Sensing-Perceiving (SP) types
Augustinian appeals especially to iNtuitive-Feeling (NF) types
Ignatian appeals especially to Sensing-Judging (SJ) types

I’d be cautious of putting too much weight on this but it is suggestive of why different people are drawn towards different styles of prayer.

For the record I’m INTP

2 responses to “Personality and Prayer”

Rich

2005-12-15

I’m INTP too!

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Matt Stone

2005-12-16

Have I mentioned my hypothesis about the Emerging Church and temperament types? Hmmm, may have been the other blog but anyhoo, when I have done spot surveys on EC types I have found that up to 80% of those asked were intuitive (N). In a more general population this should be closer to 25%. Male results tend to be skewed towards thinking (T) and I strongly suspect contemplatives are skewed towards introversion (I). So with hardly even knowing you there was a reasonable chance you were INTP or INTJ! Even though we typically make up less than 3% of the population. Maybe it would make a nice thesis study for a collage type.

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