Temperament and Spirituality

When I was a relatively new minister,  I had lots of confidence that if someone articulated a particular theology then what they said they believed would affect their attitudes and their behavior.  So I was teaching a new members class and I outlined several different orientations toward "the purpose of religious community."  Some examples included:  religious communities that aim to change people from one way of being to another;  religious communities that aimed to help people grow their own inner potential and religious communities that aimed to change the world.  Included on my list, was a suggestion of what I thought was a very un-Unitarian Universalist way of being religious community, a place that offered people refuge from the world, a place to find some kind of peace.

I had used this schema at Arlington Street Church and in Indiana, and my new to Unitarian Universalism students were all agreed, the purpose of church was to help people grow, and to support efforts to transform the world.  My members were choosing the expected options,  and coincidentally these options are what the ministerial fellowship committee uses to define ministry.  It wasn't until during my third year in ministry that a number of more senior members of the congregation began to take my class.  They had heard from the newer members that it was worthwhile, and they felt they needed this experience as well.

When the topic of the purpose of the church came up in our class, these elders were bold enough to say why they came to church.  And more than a few of them said refuge, sanctuary, respite.  I was taken aback.  These were pillars of the congregation.  They were Religious Humanists in the Manifesto II sense of that word, and dutiful social action advocates.  Surely they came for intellectual and ethical growth and to advance the liberal social agenda.  As we discussed their point of view,  it became clear that they supported the mission of the congregation, that they were interested in personal and intellectual growth, and while they were suspicious of the word "spiritual" they were seeking to become more open, more generous, more aware and more connected to themselves, to other people and to the cosmos.

Knowing that they claimed that they came for refuge, and knowing that nothing in their theology suggested escapism, gnosticism, or monasticism,  I began to observe these elders more closely seeking an answer to my puzzlement.  I was reading  "Four Spiritualities: Expressions of Self, Expressions of Spirit : A Psychology of Contemporary Spiritual Choice" (Peter Tufts Richardson) at the time.  Peter Richardson a long time Unitarian Universalist minister had studied how personality shapes and forms our spiritual choices using Jungian psychology as his guide.  Peter suggested that introverts may share the same world view as Extroverts but they will approach it in an introverted fashion.  And it dawned on me, the introvert might experience religious community as a place that they can be introverted, a refuge from an extroverted world.  I saw my own extroversion in context, most Americans are extroverted, and while I may have major criticisms of the dominant world view, I share this relational dynamic.  The minority introverts might have cause to experience my presumptions as oppressive.  They needed time to re-energize before going into the world.  We all have an introverted side as well as an extroverted side, but some of prefer going out to world, or going inside ourselves. In my worship planning I should appeal to both,  I should become more conscious of both the extroverts and the introverts (as well as the sensors and intuitives, etc.) in worship, and in teaching.

The UUA President, William Sinkford speaks of worship services in which "sermons about real-life issues are becoming more common, appealing not just to our minds but also calling us to be our best selves as we go back out into the world and face another week."  I don't experience our worship services as a respite from the world,  but I am not an introvert (although Bill has made that assumption about me.)  I don't think Bill has a different understanding of church than I do, but I need the world in order to think,  but he needs some time away from the world to regroup.  For a different take on Bill's statement read TheLivelyTradition.