SOMA Conference

"From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work." Ephesians 4:1

Last weekend, I attended the SOMA conference at my church, Flood. SOMA is the greek word for body. It was a great time of personal reflection, small group discussion, worship, and ministry training. As part of the conference, we took the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test and the Strength Finder's test. Over the years, I've taken a lot of personality and personal profile evaluations, but these were probably the most helpful. Here's some things I learned about myself:

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Profile
Reported Type: ISFP
Introversion -- tend to focus their attention on the inner world of ideas and impressions.
Sensing -- tend to take in information through the five senses and focus on the here and now.
Feeling -- tend to make decisions based primarily on values and on subjective evaluation of person-centered concerns.
Perceiving -- tend to like a flexible and spontaneous approach to life and prefer to keep their options open.

Most people assume I'm an extrovert, because of my communication skills and the ability to perform or speak in groups, but I've been learning more and more just how introverted I am. It's actually kind of a relief to figure it out and feel comfortable with it. The sensing type is so me it's kind of scary. I learn best when I'm receiving information through multiple senses. It's one of the reasons Flood services work so well for me, with so many visual and interactive aspects.

Strength Finders -- Top 5 Talent Themes
1. Adaptability -- prefer to "go with the flow." They tend to be "now" people who take things as they come and discover the future one day at a time.
2. Empathy -- can sense the feelings of other people by imagining themselves in others' lives or others' situations.
3. Connectedness -- have faith in the links between all phenomena. They believe there are no coincidences and that every event has a reason.
4. Responsibility -- take psychological ownership of what they say they will do. They are committed to stable values such as honesty and loyalty.
5. Communication -- generally find it easy to put their thoughts into words. They are good conversationalists and presenters.

I love the Strength Finder's assessment, and I highly recommend it. You can buy the book at any book store. I've been told it's very unusual for people to have Adaptability and Responsibility in their top five, but that it's a good combination because you can be flexible and responsible. I feel the fight between the two sides often, like when trying to convince myself to get my taxes together instead of going to the beach! Connectedness was probably my favorite theme, because it confirms my feelings that I'm part of a much larger picture and faith.

What I liked the most about the assessments (and the conference) was the completely positive approach. It's so easy to get bogged down in what we can't do or what we are not good at, it's easy to miss our strengths. Sometimes, God has to use creative ways to get our attention and remind us who He created us to be.