Introversion In the Church
Growing up a pastor’s kid means being outgoing, friendly, physically expressive in worship, passionate for the ministries the church supports. By doing those things, in your young, developing mind, you ensure your dad, in essence, “keeps his job.” I was crushed when I was about fourteen or fifteen and a member of my grandfather’s church caught me midway up the left aisle and asked to talk to me. He started off the conversation as most people who have a complaint do, with a tone of feigned interest in your personal life so you don’t suspect they’re about to come in with the right hook.
“Some people find you unapproachable.”
Okay. What is this guy even talking about? I’m checking all the boxes: I’m friendly, I smile, I volunteer, I lead worship once a month, I teach when needed, I’m the president of the girls’ club, I’m on the drama team, I replenish the toilet paper in the bathrooms by making a young man think I’m interested in him, I lift my hands, visit the altar, believe in Jesus. What more do you want?
“Unapproachable? I don’t know why. Anyone is more than welcome to come and talk to me. I’m sorry they feel that way. I hate that.”
I started to mull over times in my life when I was called “weird” or “quirky,” and then convinced myself that all of these things made me undesirable, not worth the time or potential relationship, and that the only option was to take it to heart, change who I was, and become what I had to be in order to help my family succeed. I spent the next few years trying to be overly-friendly, pushing myself out of the comfort zone I had in order to discredit the “unapproachable” identity that had been given to me.
What God Says
You see, I understand that, as Christians, our primary identity is in Christ, but when you live under a microscope in which you have a body of people who seem to think they determine your identity in Christ, eventually it wears on you and you really have a difficult time deciphering what is true. Could they be right? Could they know more about who I am in the Lord than what he tells me? Truthfully, I was raised to listen to what I was told and not really encouraged to read and understand the Scriptures for myself; I was raised to rely on feelings about God rather than who he is actually revealed to be in the Scriptures and what he actually tells us about ourselves in those same Scriptures.
I had to come to an understanding that ministry and outreach isn’t exclusive to the outgoing. It would be another several years before I would understand that is not true, but first I had to unravel who I thought I was and what I was led to believe ministry looked like.
In my sophomore year of college, I took a course on “Ministry in Vocation”. We had a guest teacher who administered several inventories to help us understand our personalities and how we interact with the world around us. I thought, I’m an ENTJ, for sure. I’m outgoing and friendly. My score came back INTJ. I read through the descriptions to be sure, and still the label “introvert” resonated with me. Existential crisis number 397 of my four years in college.
There is a bias towards the naturally charismatic, outgoing, leader types we refer to as ENTJ. Commonly, that is called the “Pastor personality,” and they truly do make wonderful pastors. Pastor Josiah would be considered an ENTJ (extroverted, intuition, thinking, judgement) personality type, and he is outgoing and friendly, intuitive, intelligent, and values traditions and guidelines, such as believing that Scripture is the guidepost of how we live and know God. How could I be part of a ministry team if I wasn’t an extrovert like him?
We All Have a Place
I’m coming to realize, whether introvert or extrovert, we all have a place in ministering to the lost and building up the body of Christ. Just because we’re more outgoing or more reserved doesn’t give us favoritism in the kingdom, and we should stop acting as if that were so. When we do that, when we draw a dividing line between people because of how they resemble the different parts of Father God, we are saying that part of the body of Christ is less important than other parts. Paul warns us against this way of thinking in 1 Corinthians 12.
He doesn’t say that the spiritual gifts are held back from those who are of a certain personality type. 1 Corinthians 12:4-7 and 11 (ESV) says, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good… All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills” (emphasis mine).
Fellow introverts, I’m challenging us, as much as I am challenging others, to not consider ourselves less important or valuable to the church. In the same way that Paul says, “If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body” (1 Corinthians 12:15, ESV), we should not deceive ourselves into thinking, Because I am not an extrovert or outgoing, I do not belong to the body, for it doesn’t make us any less a part of the body. In the same way, as Paul wrote, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’” (1 Corinthians 12:21, ESV), because God created us all in his image, reflecting different parts of him, “that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another” (1 Corinthians 12: 25, ESV).
As introverts, we bring something to the world as God’s hands and feet that no one else can bring, and he is the one who empowers us for that. It is in those very personal gifts that we get you that make you think, How could someone remember I liked that? Are they in my head? (we commit things to memory for people we care about, and yes, we’re kind of in your head) that we represent the caring nature of God. It’s in the times you need someone to just listen and empathize with you in your struggle that we represent the God who is ever present with us in times of joy and struggle. We’re on the worship and media team, we’re changing diapers in the nursery, we’re setting up communion between services, we’re working in the food pantry, leading a small group or step study, or sitting in the row near you. We may not always make the first move to reach out and build a meaningful relationship, but we are approachable. We are here for you, just more quietly.
We are not less than members in the body of Christ. We are equals — equally loved by God, equally called to go into all the world preaching the Gospel and making disciples of all people, and equally equipped to do the good works prepared beforehand (Ephesians 2:10). Walk confidently, my fellow introverts. Know that the Lord has made you in his image, and you are okay just as you are.
