This post will give you an Expanded INFJ Profile
INFJ stands for introverted intuitive feeling judging. As you look at the diagram, notice the Work mode has moved to the top of the page. As expected, Creativity is opposite Work and now on the bottom of the page. Play is found to the left and challenge to the right.
The work mode for the INFJ has in its Competence position the transactional role of Critic. Its corresponding ministry role is Worship Evaluator/Planner.
CRITIC
This role involves very astute, critical listening, with exacting interpretation that notes the differences in meanings in words like lied, falsified, distorted, misinterpreted, and misunderstood. The exacting nature is typical of detailed transaction. This transaction is vital to many professionals, including speech therapists, voice coaches, theater critics, political analysts, interviewers, copy editors and opera singers. This transaction typifies person who prefer to listen rather than speak.
WORSHIP PLANNER/EVALUATOR
There is a more obvious connection to this ministry role than some of the others. Worship is in many ways a divine drama. The choice of words is important. How and when, they are spoken is important. The nuances of their theological implications are important. The mood they create or destroy are important. It is important to have a ministry role to help make these decisions.
The INFJ personality type may find it very difficult to enter into any worship that they attend. Their Critic role automatically kicks in and may distract them from enjoying the experience. A pastor might find it very useful to seek out a mature INFJ in his congregation and use them as a kind of Monday morning quarterback, to assess Sunday’s worship experience. In a large congregation, it could be useful to encourage an INFJ to participate on the worship committee. However, realize you will get lots of feedback, regarding even the minutest aspects of the worship experience.
The Talent portion of the Work mode of the INFJ has the transactional role of Composer and the ministry role of Apologist.
COMPOSER
The Composer role harmonizes the combinations. This could be words in a poem or couples at a dinner party. This role is alert to issues of human sensitivity, and issues of spirituality. They often gravitate to the professions of counseling and psychology, as well as the arts.
APOLOGIST
Composers are looking for the harmony in combinations. The ministry role of Apologist is one that attempts to help the culture outside of Christianity find a point of contact with the faith. The true Apologist is a defender of the faith. Their focus is on helping the outsider understand and even come to accept the faith, as both reasonable and good. C.S. Lewis used his composing role to write reasonable, good, and true understandings of Christian.
In the church, you might find the INFJ writing a chancel drama or children’s story. An aware pastor might put an INFJ to work on the planning committee for a special service. Perhaps, remembering they are introverted, it might be better just to ask them to do a particular writing task for such an event and keep the need for extroverted activity to a minimum.
The Play mode for the INFJ has the transactional role of Follower in the Perseverance position. This is expressed in the ministry role of Servant of Evangelism.
FOLLOWER
The Follower is a very service oriented skill. They like to following directions. Nurses for example manipulate the body to act in accordance with clear-cut instructions. They get the instructions from a Doctor or learn the movements in nursing school.
A trained musician does the same thing. However, many hours of repetitive actions, called practice, help him or her to perform under the direction of the music on the printed page or follow the wave of the conductor’s wand.
SERVANT OF EVANGELISM
The Servant of Evangelism has a desire to help others into the Kingdom of God. They are concerned that others be brought to Christ. But being Followers, rather than Initiators, and introverted rather than extroverted, they prefer to be of service to another. They would rather play a supportive role. They are the nurses in the field of evangelism rather than the doctors.
Keep in mind the complimentary relationship between Work and Play. In addition to an interest in worship planning and evaluating, the INFJ perseveres in servant ministry. Perhaps they are the church organist and dedicate long hours of individual practice and choir rehearsal to the worship of God.
The Relax portion of the Play mode of the INFJ has the transactional role of Doer. Its corresponding ministry role is Minister in the Church.
DOER
The Doer role is one involving body output. Doer professions include everything from athlete and related professions, such as dancer, to such jobs as farmer or shepherd. Doers are most alert to signals from their own body, which they act upon as they match them to their memories similar signal in the past. The dancer knows what the right step feels like. The farmer recognizes with his senses when the crop is ready for harvest.
MINISTER IN THE CHURCH
The Minister in the Church is a Doer role. This might include anything from a member of the altar guild, who knows just the best way to polish the silver and clean the linens, to the maintenance committee, who cares for the building. It might include members of the hospitality committee, who always know how to make the coffee taste just right and decorate the hall in an attractive manner. It might, as I have suggested above, include playing the church organ. One might think of such an activity as more hand-eye-corordination in its orientation. However, an organist must be able to move both hands and both feet at the same time. He must follow the directions of the music and/or conductor. Plus, there is no doubt, such a position is one of Ministry in the Church.
The Challenge mode for the INFJ has in its Toil position the transactional role of Analyst. The parallel Ministry Role is Preacher of Salvation.
ANALYST
The Analyst finds logic in structures. He takes information that consists of structured data and logically processes them into structured concepts. This role is acted out in the professions of applied science, math and physics. It is also helpful in medicine for diagnosis, and a role useful to lawyers. This is the most sophisticated of the roles involving the most intricate of the mental capacities.
PREACHER OF SALVATION
For some people, salvation may seem to be a pretty simple and straight forward event. However, most Salvation Preachers have developed some kind of systematized understanding of the process. This process may seem like an event, a flash in time, or it may be viewed as taking a long time. Either way the Preacher will have some kind of sequential understanding. This might be a twelve point scale of readiness for evangelism or the Four Spiritual Laws. The simple statement of Justin Martyr reflects an analysis of salvation. “He became as we are so that we might become as He is.” The Preacher of Salvation has analyzed God’s plan for the universe and want to proclaim it to anyone who will listen.
It has been said that the most frightening thing for most people is just the thought of being required to do some public speaking. The introverted INFJ is no exception. He or she would not be thrilled with the task of preaching, or talking, to more than one person at a time, period. On the other hand, they may experience opportunities to do so as a challenge or call from God.
The Serendipity position of the Challenge mode of the INFJ has Suspector for a transactional role. The corresponding ministry role is Minister in Spiritual Gifts.
SUSPECTOR
The Suspector is trying to find a strategy or logic behind a given pattern. The detective is the obvious example. He or she searches the data until a pattern of clues is discovered. Then the task becomes one of developing a strategy to link the pattern to the suspect. The Suspector formulates a plan from an observed collection of data. So a football coach might be a good Suspector. He scouts the opposing team to detect their weak points and then plans a strategy to defeat them.
MINISTER OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS
In this category, I am speaking of the nine-fold Gifts of the Spirit (What we have discussed above as the power to say, know, and do). This ministry role is connected to the capacity of sSspector as it takes a bit of detective work to know which gift to use in any given situation. Also the Suspector capacity is strongly influenced by the intuitive function. It is dependent upon inspiration. Those who minister in Spiritual Gifts call it faith!
The INFJ might not come to spiritual gifts with the same assurance of the ENTP, who has it in the Work mode. However, as their experience of spiritual gifts grows, they may anticipate the occurrence of the gifts as very special God-incidences in their lives. Moreover, it may be precisely in the area of their toil position that the gifts manifest themselves.
The Creativity mode for the INFJ has the transactional role of Implementor in the Lock position. It’s corresponding ministry role is Peace and Justice Worker.
IMPLEMENTOR
An Implementor is someone who sorts out the routines of life. Lowen tells us that he almost called this transaction engineer. The engineer uses the routines he or she knows regarding speed, stress, temperature, etc. to create a machine or build a rocket. As with other roles we have discussed, the Implementor can also be focused upon more abstract things. The Implementor makes a good administrator who can mix all the routines of an organization into a smoothly running whole.
PEACE AND JUSTICE WORKER
The distinction between this ministry role and Social Justice Program Developer seem slim. However, the Developer is more likely to create a new program, whereas the Peace and Justice Worker will execute an existing program. The program developer using his organizing skills might bring several churches and or organizations together to fight discrimination in the city. However, once a plan is in place the extroverted Implementor is better able to work the pieces of the system to get results.
This activity may be the furthest from the mind of the INFJ. In fact, it is by definition among the most unconscious of activities. On the other hand, it represents what Lowen calls the hidden agenda for this type. In other words, the reason for good worship is somehow connected to implementing peace and justice. The best way to present a good apology for the faith is to let justice reign.
The Key portion of Creativity for the INFJ is the transactional role of Operator. The ministry role for this position is Be Jesus as the Church.
OPERATOR
Operator is foremost a hands on activity. The operator might operate a word processor, a scalpel, or a socket wrench. Also like Molder the Operator can operate people, institutions, or ideas, as well as things. He or she might be a store manager or a policeman, as well as secretary or surgeon. The Operator can read the environment and then act upon it. The environment might be a gang fight or car engine.
BE JESUS AS THE CHURCH
In this ministry mode, the environment is the church and its surroundings. Here the Operator’s tool is not a scalpel or a wrench, it is the church! This role asks how can I use the church building to minister to the kids down the block? How can we use the choir to minister to Nursing home across the street? How can the church be Jesus? The contrast between this an Making the Church Be Jesus is one is focused on changing the church to make it more like Jesus. The other is focused on using the church as it is to be Jesus now!
One might imagine a hypothetical situation in which our INFJ church organist could be very creative. Suppose she was asked to plan a worship service for the annual Thanksgiving program and was encouraged to include children from the local homeless shelter in her ecumenical choir. When she turned to the Lord for help and guidance a very creative worship event would be sure to emerge!
SPIRITUAL GIFTS
The INFJ should look for assistance in the following gifts of the Spirit. The gifts of prophesy, tongues, interpretation of tongues, exhortation, emotional healing, and pastor will be active in the work mode. However, these may be viewed or experienced more as natural talents than spiritual gifts. An attitude of humility and gratitude can enhance their spiritual effectiveness. This will be true in the Play mode, but to a slightly lesser degree. Here the INFJ might anticipate an experience of the gifts of physical healing, helps, mercy and hospitality. In the more unconscious Challenge mode, the INFJ may find the Lord moving in his life through the spiritual gifts of discernment, apostle, wisdom, faith, and knowledge. Lastly in the Creativity mode, and perhaps most importantly, the INFJ may experience service and administration. These will likely be viewed as the most Godly of the gifts. Because of their unconscious nature the INFJ will have to exercise greater will to accept them.
For a complete explanation of Personality Type see my discussion of How to Understand People click here.
For more specific information on INFJ click here.
To read Walter Lowen click here.
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