Download the Assessment
For those who have read Dr. Gary Thomas’s book, Sacred Pathways, you may recall the insightful assessment featured at the end. I’ve taken the initiative to recreate this assessment in Excel, showcasing the findings in a visually appealing manner. Having come across this book during a class I was taking, I couldn’t resist creating a more refined presentation of the assessment. Please find the link to my creation below. This link will download the Excel file.
I have included instruction in the file to make it easier to complete.
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Summary of spiritual temperaments
Intellectual – Loving God with the Mind:
These Christians live in the world of concepts. They may feel closest to God when they first understand something new about Him.
Contemplative – Loving God through Adoration:
These Christians seek to love God with the purest, deepest, and brightest love imaginable. They want nothing more than some privacy and quiet to gaze upon the face of their heavenly Lover and give all of themselves to God.
Enthusiast – Loving God with Mystery & Celebration:
Excitement and mystery in worship is the spiritual lifeblood of enthusiasts. They are inspired by joyful celebration; cheerleaders for God and the Christian life. They don’t want to just know concepts, but to experience them, to feel them, and to be moved by them. They like to let go and experience God on the precipice of excitement and awe.
Caregiver – Loving God by Loving Others:
Caregivers serve God by serving others. They often claim to see Christ in the poor and needy, and their faith is built up by interacting with other people. Caring for others recharges a caregiver’s batteries.
Activist – Loving God Through Confrontation:
These Christians define worship as standing against evil and calling sinners to repentance. They are energized more by interaction with others, even in conflict, than by being alone or in small groups. Activists are spiritually nourished through the battle.
Ascetic – Loving God in Solitude and Simplicity:
Ascetics want nothing more than to be left alone in prayer. Let there be nothing to distract them–no pictures, no loud music–and leave them alone to pray in silence and simplicity.
Traditionalist – Loving God Through Ritual and Symbol:
Traditionalists are fed by what are often termed the historic dimensions of faith: rituals, symbols, sacraments, and sacrifice. They tend to have a disciplined life of faith and have a need for ritual and structure.
Sensate – Loving God with the Senses:
Sensate Christians want to be lost in the awe, beauty, and splendor of God. They are drawn particularly to the liturgical, the majestic, the grand. They want to be filled with sights, sounds, and smells that overwhelm them. The five senses are God’s most effective inroad to their hearts.
Naturalist – Loving God Out of Doors:
The naturalist seeks to leave the formal architecture and the padded pews to enter an entirely new “cathedral”, a place that God himself has built: the out-of-doors.
