Andy, thanks for the link to your blog post, and for the quiz. I remember that tragedy, which had a deep effect on some young people I know who were school friends of the lad who died. On your quiz I come out as “an affective pray-er beyond words”, which makes sense although the thinking, left-brained side of me sometimes wonder if it is a bit of a cop-out for not bothering to put my prayers into words. Or perhaps that’s the opposite pole I am supposed to be fascinated by.

I hadn’t heard of the Neethling Brain Instrument, so thank you. It’s hard to know which profile would best fit the ministry situation. Perhaps the general ‘adult’ one or the ‘leadership’ instrument (although I’m cautious about how far you can translate models from companies to the church). Which one did your group take at church?

Andy’s blog post explores prayer with and without words, and he provides a quiz based on the following rationale (Andy, I hope you don’t mind me quoting a paragraph or two from the post.):

This is based on my amended version of the typology in John Westerhoff’s Spiritual Life (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994). The idea is that all of us have a ‘home base’ spirituality which can be plotted along too axes: one goes from affective to reflective/active (pretty much the same distinction as ‘F’ and ‘T’ on Myers-Briggs; and the other from verbal to beyond words (or if you prefer kataphatic to apophatic, non-mystical to mystical, a mediated knowing God to a direct knowing God, etc).

In addition, it’s Westerhoff’s contention (and it makes sense in my experience) that we tend to be fascinated by the diagonally opposite ‘school’ of spirituality as well. So for example my natural territory is highly emotional and wordy, but I feel a need to balance that with some active ‘beyond words’ prayer. Anyway, try it. See if it’s fun. See if it helps.