Significantly Dissimilar

Dear Friends,
As part of my requirements for ordination I had to see an especially selected psychologist for a psych eval. The Regional Office (ordination authority) has an on-going relationship with this guy and they send all their candidates to him for evaluation. He uses the normal battery of tests and adds one or two at the Region's request. Mostly though, the difference between this psych eval and any other is that it is specifically designed to measure aptitude and fitness for ministry. The whole ordeal took three visits and a total of about six hours, I think. I tested for three hours, was interviewed for one hour and came back for another two hours to get my results. This, of course, also involved a lot of interaction, which was then considered for the final report.

I just pulled out the reports so I can write about it here, but what I remember without looking is this. He said my profile was "significantly dissimilar" from the cohort of successful female Protestant ministers. This cohort is determined by surveys sent to ministers who self report and also report on their colleagues. "Successful" means they are happy and satisfied in their work and their colleagues name them as successful. Something like that. He wrote in my report, "career satisfaction in congregational ministry cannot be predicted, nor can persistence in that career." Oh, and he said I "somatize distress." I think that is psycho-babble for "she is a hypochondriac." No place in the report did he mention that I reported having been diagnosed with narcolepsy, a neurological disorder, and that I am under the care of a physician. Whatever.

My Meyers-Briggs was INTP. I already knew that. What I didn't know was how severe are my introversion and intuitive proclivities. I scored: Introversion, very clear, 26 (out of 30); Intuition, very clear, 30; Thinking, clear, 16; Perceiving, clear, 23. He said that they have found that people who score that high on N, intuition, tended to have trouble noticing reality around them. They tend to "have their heads in the clouds," or be the "absent-minded professor" type. Yep. That's me.

The Strong Interest Inventory uses a 65 pt. scale. Don't ask me why. This is the "similar" or "dissimilar" test, comparing my inventory to a cohort of those who are considered satisfied and successful in that career. I scored 63 on "Editor," 61 on "Graphic Designer," 60 each on "Technical Writer" and "Translator," 59 each on "Librarian" and "Photographer," 58 on "Musician," 52 on "University Professor," etc. The score this guy was interested in was "Minister." I scored 20.

Do you think I should re-think my career choice? Yeah, technical writer/editor looks like the right fit for me, but here I am finishing a masters of divinity degree. Sometimes life is funny. One Day at a Time... Take it Easy... Don't Sweat the Small Stuff... . I seem to live by the Alanon slogans.

A couple of things make me hesitate to chuck ministry. First, my little church has stood by me and made my seminary education possible. They believe in me and think I'm a pretty swell minister. Second, I do the ministry the cohort of satisfied female Protestant ministers do not do. I allow people their pain and disappointment without promising them a rose garden if they will be baptized in my church and then tithe. Or at least tithe. Tithe means give 10% of your income to the church. It is based on the tax code of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). Yeah. Tax code.

I am not personally offended by people who smell bad, have missing or black teeth, can't keep a job, spend their money inappropriately, get drunk or high, or practice promiscuous sex. Nor do I think it is my job to save them from such things. I feel no need to make them my best friends. I don't have any illusions about becoming their savior... from themselves, from hell, from an abusive marriage, or from anything else. Healing and growth are normal parts of human experience, as are sickness, dysfunction, and self-destruction. Jesus said, "Do not judge." Now that is a simple enough directive, isn't it? Yet, the cohort of successful ministers spend their lives doing just that. Excuse me, that was rude. I should not speak for a cohort I do not represent. But it sure seems to me that much of what we assume ministry is about is making people better in some sense.

I certainly hope that folks who listen to me preach and teach and who receive my ministry gifts will benefit by those experiences, but I am not responsible for seeing to it that they change. I am not there to diagnose their ills and straighten them out. And I absolutely do not think that adopting American cultural Christianity is the answer to everything from depression to alcoholism to cancer. "What would Jesus do?" Hmmm. He didn't baptize folks. He didn't accept money for healing them. He didn't tell them to meet Victorian sexual ethics. Seems to me that he ate with them, healed them, blessed them, forgave them, encouraged them with parables, and sent them on their way. Why can't we do that in the church and call it ministry?

Yeah. I'm "significantly dissimilar." God bless them. God bless me.
Imagine a good life,
Mary