Dealing with the INFP Pastor

For as long as I have been studying psychology, the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Test has been used as a sort of staple in psychology circles for "knowing thyself." I tend not to put too much stock in these sorts of tests, the validity is questionable and a person can, after taking it once, often manipulate the questions to center up a bit more in order to end up where they want to be described. Nevertheless, I have found the Myers-Briggs to be the most informative and revealing of the personality tests I have taken to date. It's also the one that has felt the most accurate and been the most helpful in helping me identify strengths and weaknesses.

My test results have been consistent over 20+ years, with only slight fluctuations in the Thinking/Feeling Component. I am a predominately Introverted, significantly Intuitive, a balanced Thinker/Feeler, and a highly imbalanced and potentially dangerous Perceptive.  

What does any of that mean for a pastor or a congregation?

Very simply, it breaks down like this:

ENERGY -- An extrovert gains energy when conversing with others, participating in activities, and being in a large crowd. As an introvert, I lose energy in these environments and can quickly become drained in settings with more than three or four people. I am energized by more the internal world of ideas and emotions.

ATTENTION -- A sensing person always has a keen eye on the facts immediately around them. They perceive the world in a mostly literal way and are the best at seeing the factual details of any given situation. As an intuitive, I tend to pay more attention to concepts, imagination, and connections rather than the literal things around me and all their intricacies. I tend not to look at the facts, but through them.

DECISONS -- Very simply, thinkers decide with their head and feelers decide with their heart. I will most often make decisions with both my heart and my head, even though I almost always test on these things as a "Feeler." The difference is very minor, so much so that I could technically go either way. It's probably best to say I try to think through my emotions when I decide, rather than feeling my way through my thoughts.

LIFESTYLE / WORKSTYLE -- People who use "Judgment" to determine their lifestyle or work-style doesn't mean anything bad about judging people. It means that they prefer to gather facts, make decisions, and lead a planned, organized, well-thought-out life. It is an admirable way to be wired up! Perceptive types like to take life as it comes, stay spontaneous, unplanned, and flexible. They are the "go-with-the-flow" types. I am highly unbalanced toward Perception and have never had a "J" score at all, never answered even one question with a "J" response in 20+ years. That's a potentially  dangerous imbalance.

A classic INFP is described this way in most of the literature:

“INFPs present a calm and serene face to the world, and can seem shy, even distant around others. But inside they’re anything but serene, having a capacity for personal caring rarely found in the other types. INFPs care deeply about the inner life of a few special persons, or about a favorite cause in the world at large. And their great passion is to heal the conflicts that trouble individuals, or that divide groups, and thus to bring wholeness, or health, to themselves, their loved ones, and their community.

INFPs have a profound sense of Idealism that comes from a strong personal sense of right and wrong. They conceive of the world as an ethical, honorable place, full of wondrous possibilities, beauty, and potential goods. In fact, to understand INFPs, we must understand that their deep commitment to the positive and the good is almost boundless and selfless, inspiring them to make extraordinary sacrifices for someone or something they believe in. Set off from the rest of humanity by their privacy and scarcity (only 1% of the population), the INFP can often feel even more isolated in the purity of their idealism.
 

Fiercely committed to the positive and the good and possessing an uncanny vision for spotting good and evil, INFP's tend to easily see the evil in themselves more frequently than other types. As a result, they can often come to develop a fascination with the profane, seeking to understand it completely.

Because the INFP is drawn toward the sacred, they are continuously on the lookout for the wickedness that lurks within them and are often driven to acts of self-sacrifice, shame, and other punitive measures that habitually take in atonement for their own evils - whether those evils are real or imagined. Others seldom detect this inner turmoil, however, for the struggle between good and evil is within and the INFP does not feel compelled to make the issue public.

For INFPs, their home is their castle. As parents, they are fierce in protection of home and family and are devoted to the welfare of family members. They have a strong capacity for devotion, sympathy, and adaptability in their relationships, and thus are easy to live with. The almost preconscious conviction that pleasure must be paid for with pain can cause a sense of uneasiness in the family system of an INFP, who may transmit an air of being ever vigilant against invasion.
 

In the routine rituals of daily living, INFPs tend to be compliant and may even prefer having decisions made on their behalf, until their value system is violated. Then INFPs dig in their heels and will not budge from ideals. Life with an INFP will go gently along for long periods, until an ideal is struck and violated. Then an INFP will resist and insist.

At work, INFPs are adaptable, welcome new ideas and new information, are patient with complicated situations, but impatient with routine details. INFPs are keenly aware of people and their feelings, and relate well with most others. Because of their deep-seated reserve, however, they can work quite happily alone. When making decisions, INFPs follow their heart not their head, which means they can make errors of fact, but seldom of feeling. They have a natural interest in scholarly activities and demonstrate, like the other Idealists, a remarkable facility with language. They have a gift for interpreting stories, as well as for creating them, and thus often write in lyric, poetic fashion. Frequently they hear a call to go forth into the world and help others, a call they seem ready to answer, even if they must sacrifice their own comfort.”

And there you have it, almost everything that's good and bad about an INFP pastor is neatly summed up in a few paragraphs. Visionary, sacrificially devoted, and inwardly passionate about a few select causes and people reveal the INFP to be a loving, loyal pastor -- even if those strengths are not readily apparent in his or her introversion.

On the downside however, the INFP pastor will often let details slip, seek privacy when togetherness is needed, and can quickly become a radical, even fanatical crusader when an ideal is violated.  Wrapped up in all the negatives, is the daunting reality that an INFP will always be their own worst critic, acutely tuned in to the smallest inklings of failure, selfishness, or greed in themselves. While we all do this to ourselves at times, the INFP has a propensity to take it to much deeper, personal levels.

Tips for congregations that have an INFP pastor:

·         Celebrate your pastor's loyalty, sacrifice, and his commitment to the job.

·         Recognize your pastor's tendency to totally lose herself in the causes and the people to whom she feels obligated -- to the point of even making un-reasonable self-sacrifices that effect health and financial well-being.

·         In recognizing the above, protect your pastor. When he says that he's not over-worked, listen for the unspoken queues of a Crusader who'd never admit to being tired when his highest ideals are on the line. When she says she doesn't need a raise, or care about the money, believe her -- but don't let her pour out her soul every week for a fast-food wage.

·         Study your pastor's passions and throw yourself behind those passions with him/her. The solidarity and sharing of vision will mean more to an INFP that most other personality types.

·         Allow your pastor to work alone as needed. An INFP is the epitome of a perfectionist in this regard: We are the sort who can walk past a stain on the rug for months without seeing it, but yet we will meticulously wipe every speck of dust off a favorite book and will work without food or sleep to protect the things we hold dear. If it matters to an INFP, you can almost always bet that it will be done right and with unmatched precision. When the INFP pastor is in the zone, he or she takes great care to produce incredibly detailed, well-thought-out work -- but this often requires that distractions be held to a minimum.

·         Understand that regardless of the face your pastor may present to the world every Sunday, beneath that calm, serene exterior, is a rich emotional life. One that is likely battling demons in his or her soul that don't even exist.

·         Realize that occasionally, your pastor will lead a charge against windmills, while insisting they are dragons. Lovingly remind him or her, that God is fully capable of choosing the right battles at the right times. Remind them that playing "knight in shining armor" only works when God is in the midst of their activities. We INFP believers will sometimes forget these things and wildly charge against a perceived threat.

·         Finally, understand your pastor's relentless self-scrutiny, fears, and insecurities. It is likely that whatever complaint you might have against your INFP pastor, he or she has already lost countless hours of sleep worrying about it. Always couple your view of the problem with a potential solution.... and above all, stay positive.

The INFP pastor is a true gift to a congregation and a community. Love them and treat them so, because you can bet every free calorie they have to burn is applied to loving and praying for the church they hold so dear.