Pray It Your Way Mary Lou Redding Spiritual leaders face the daunting task of guiding others closer to God. The task seems overwhelming as we consider the state of our own relationship with God, the diversity of the people we know, and God's call to each of us. We know that each person approaches God with exactly the same access; each of us is a dearly loved child of God for whom Christ died. And we all come with two basic hungers: to know God and to know ourselves as completely loved by God. But leaders bear a special responsibility as role models who pursue the life of prayer, spending time with God. It is difficult to guide others to Living Water if we do not ourselves know the way to the Well. Editors at The Upper Room have talked about "raising prayer to a lifestyle." But we also acknowledge that there is no one-size-fits-all "lifestyle of prayer." People walk many paths in coming to God, and each person comes to know God and the world through the filter of individual personalities. Leaders know that what works for some people does not work for others. Helping others learn to pray and deepening our own life of prayer depends on understanding this and on experiencing prayer in many forms and settings. A tool I have found helpful for exploring how people pray and what "works" for different people in prayer is personality theory. The theory that I am most familiar with is the Meyers-Briggs personality assessment. This theory identifies four pairs of preferences for how we learn, make decisions, and interact with others in the world around us. The four preference pairs are summarized in the following chart. Myers Briggs Personality Preferences Summary Chart Preference Pairs Personality Interest and Description Our preference for Introvert (I) or Extrovert (E) is discovered by considering what energizes us (I) Introverts — energized by silence and solitude • like to think through responses to comfortably talk about them • exhausted by crowds (E) Extroverts — energized by interaction with people • like to talk to explore what they think • stimulated and renewed by crowds Our preference for Sensate (S) or Intuitive (N) is discovered by considering how we gather information (S) Sensate — focus on physical world and gather information through 5 senses • distracted by uncomfortable room temperature, pictures crooked on a wall, disorderly external environment (N) Intuitive — focus on inner world of thoughts and impressions • have a "hunch" or feeling about a situation, place, or relationship • "lose" themselves in a story so that they don't hear others speaking Our preference for Thinking (T) or Feeling (F) is discovered by considering how we weigh information to make decisions (T) Thinking — rely on rules, standards, fairness, and theory on which rules are built • want to be consistent • enjoy thinking about ideas (F) Feeling — consider the impact of decisions on people and relationships • want to be compassionate • respond first to people and relationships Our preference for Judging (J) or Perceiving (P) is discovered by considering our comfort with closure or ambiguity (J) Judging — gather information, weigh it, decide, and act • prefer clear boundaries, deadlines • need closure (like to tidy the kitchen before going to bed!) (P) Perceiving — are always open to another idea or possibility • delay decisions and have a hard time meeting deadlines because they want to consider more options   Continued on page 3

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