Personality vs Character
Dear Pastors
Personality vs Character
Personality is real and it is ever so important. The world’s population is just shy of 8 billion people. That means 8 billion individual and unique personalities are alive on the planet. One of the great delights of being a parent (and now a grandparent) is observing the development of your child’s personality. From a new born baby that, yes has a personality but it is underdeveloped and hard to distinguish from all the other babies to a young adult where the young man or young women has personality that defines and distinguishes that child from all others. It’s a beautiful thing!
Turn to any textbook on Human Development and you will come across a definition for personality that reads something like this:- “Personality refers to the long-standing traits and patterns that propel individuals to consistently think, feel, and behave in specific ways. The unique constellation of the ways we approach the world, interpret events, and act consistently across situations is our personality”1.
Applying this to pastoral leadership then. When God calls you He calls all of you. He wants your personality to shine. He wants your personality to ‘be on display’ so to speak. No problem. But here’s the thing. When you are standing in front of a group of people, when you are on the stage no matter the size of that stage God still wants you to be consistently you. But as Christian Leaders there is something else - we are called to “decrease while He must increase”. As Christian Leaders we therefore must resist the ever present temptation to elevate our own personalities, and/or create so called ‘honouring’ environments in our churches and organisations so that the leaders ego is massaged rather than the name of Jesus glorified. This is surely one of our greatest challenges in a day of celebrity adoration and worship and in a day where the ‘cult of personality’ is in my opinion completely over cooked.
Character
While personality is relatively easy to read, character, on the other hand, takes far longer to determine. “Character includes traits that reveal themselves only in specific—and often uncommon—circumstances, traits like honesty, virtue, and kindness. Ironically, research has shown that personality traits are determined largely by heredity and are mostly immutable. The arguably more important traits of character, on the other hand, are more malleable—though, we should note, not without great effort. Character traits, as opposed to personality traits, are based on beliefs (e.g., that honesty and treating others well is important—or not), and though beliefs can be changed, it's far harder than most realise”2.
It seems to me that it is precisely here where the rubber really hits the road for us who are Christian Leaders. This is God’s primary concern. A very quick overview of scripture is instructive at this point. The Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, the qualifications for spiritual leadership in 1 Timothy 3, and then passages like this in 2 Peter 1:5-11– “But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is short-sighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ”. [highlighting mine]
The truth is none of us have a fully mature character. In that sense we are all at risk of blowing it. Sanctification is the spiritual process to help us grow up. Sanctification is the Holy Spirit’s ongoing work in the life of the believer to form us more into the image of Jesus.
So, our personalities are ever so important but Godly character is absolutely non-negotiable.
I finish with this. Three weeks ago I concluded that Mega Churches aren’t the problem per se. The size of the church is not the issue. Today I am saying that the character of the leader IS an issue. I worry that the emphasis on charismatic personalities often times hides the deeper brokenness that comes from our ‘family of origin’ or the arrested emotional development that occurred in our younger years that now place leaders at significant risk to stumble and fall. And that is a much to higher price to pay for not giving attention to any personality problems we may have and/or character flaws that are deeply embedded in our souls.
Blessings
Alan
1 What is Personality? by Kathryn Dumper, William Jenkins, Arlene Lacombe, Marilyn Lovett, and Marion Perimutter.
