Colleen:

Great job. Timing is everything. This morning’s first reading at Catholic Mass was 1 JN 3:22–4:6 about good spirits acknowledging Christ and bad ones not. Related to that, we get warned to stay away from astrology and yoga and yet I never until today thought there was an issue with personality tests!

I even worked for a Catholic ministry once where they had everyone take the old Myers Briggs tests. A Catholic consultant had us take them..

And back in 2011, I became a BIG BIG fan of the Strengthsfinder exams based on lots of Gallup work. I found it was very, very helpful with the staff I had at the time (about 30 or so) because the Strengthsfinder test would show the “top five’’ strengths each taker cared most about. For example, my test told me I was strategic and big picture and that I hated filling out expense and mileage reports (I do) and to get someone else to do that. Loved that. The idea was that Americans see a kid with one D on their report card and freak out about the D when they should actually should be more focused on turning the B’s into A’s and the A’s into A-pluses to get great at what we do best.

Fast forward a few years: our Church introduced us to the Called and Gifted program through Catherine of Siena Institute. Basically, VERY SIMILAR personality tests except their intent was to find our charisms (what talents we have that can best serve God). For example, singing is a gift if you sing in the shower but it’s a charism when you sing at Church. No surprise: My strengthfinder and Called and Gifted results were pretty similar. LOVE IT when secular and Church sources agree on something… Thanks for writing this. It was very helpful!

Joe