This is a blog series based on The Five Congregational Personality Types. I’ll briefly describe each of the five types, but first I want to do an overview. If you want to go deeper, order the book here, and get registered for the free webinar coming up on Thursday May 2nd, 12pm EST.
Congregations, while incredibly unique in a diversity of ways, have a central value that is definitive of the culture. This manifests as a kind of collective personality type, the communal embodiment of a core value. The personality of a congregation and a pastor can sometimes be a mismatch, other times it can be a perfect fit.
The dominant approach to understanding human personality today is known as the Five Factor Model (FFM). Hundreds of distinct traits have been summarized within five dominant personality dimensions universal to all human beings, (extroversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism). Psychologists measure these traits through the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) more commonly called the “Big Five Assessment,” a 240-item instrument, scientifically validated through hundreds of studies across many different cultures.
What can psychologists and researchers of human personality teach us about congregational renewal?
Biblically, these five personality dimensions corelate with the fivefold gifting Jesus bestows upon the church for her upbuilding, called the APEST typology—Apostle (openness), Prophet (high/low neuroticism), Evangelist (extroversion), Shepherd (agreeableness), Teacher (conscientiousness) (Eph 4:7–13).
Every congregation has a unique personality in the same way a human does. Just like no person is exactly the same, so neither are any two congregations. Yet, just as psychologists can condense hundreds of unique personality traits into the big five categories, so too can congregations be understood through five congregational personality types. While there are a multitude of unique variations, the types give us a framework through which every congregation can grow in maturity. The congregational types are the communal embodiment of the five basic personality dimensions (FFM).
These are the five congregational personality types and their core Biblical value:
1. Proclamation Centered: This congregation values truth and loves growing and sharing in quality teaching and preaching.
2. Outreach Centered: This congregation values service and embodying the good news in word and deed. They live to serve those outside the community.
3. Generosity Centered: This congregation values singleness/generosity and uses its resources to invest in ministries that make a kingdom impact.
4. Fellowship Centered: This congregation values community and loves to be together and nurture one another.
5. Healing Centered: This congregation values wholeness and the manifestation of Jesus’s life in the world, seeking to be a community where people experience healing.
Early in the life of the church we see some consistent traits that made up congregational life. Consider Acts 2:42-47…
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” … “wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need” … “And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”
This window into early congregational life shows us that those first believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching (proclamation centered), to deep communal life (fellowship centered) breaking of bread and sharing all things in common (generosity centered), the prayers and wonders (healing centered), and the Lord was adding outsiders to their numbers (outreach). A healthy, growing church in Acts expressed all these characteristics at some level, but this is exceedingly rare among congregations today.
The ideal state of health for a congregation is to mature “to the measure of the full stature of Christ” (Eph 4:13). This would include embodying at some level each of the five personality types. However, this is more a lifelong journey of grace than a destination at which we arrive. Once we understand the five types and see our growth areas (dark side), we have a spiritual framework for growing more fully toward maturity and flourishing.
The Five Congregational Personality Types provides congregations with a shared language and helps us discover how to nurture strengths, identify blind spots, transform weaknesses, and uncover contextually appropriate strategies to increase vitality.
Bring your team to the upcoming webinar, excited to connect with you there!