I stumbled across a handful of surprising and concerning findings in an Association of Theological Schools (ATS) publication from 2018. According to the publication, Five Things We've Learned About Assessing Personal and Spiritual Formation, only 59% of theological schools have a formal definition of personal and spiritual formation. Given that personal and spiritual formation should be one of the highest priorities for current and future church leaders and pastors, it is surprising that the institutions educating them aren't more definitive.
What's even more concerning? Most theological schools (90%) use a tool to assess student spiritual formation. Nothing wrong with that, except the tools have nothing to do with "formation".
According to my dictionary, formation is, "the action of forming or process of being formed". Formation implies a movement or change to the subject or object in question. If it is a human being then the person is being shaped or moulded. Christian spiritual formation implies a process of change that leaves the person more like Jesus Christ.
With that in mind, shouldn't the tools measuring spiritual formation measure aspects of change? If so, it is surprising to see the most common tools for assessing spiritual formation:
• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) (46 schools)
• Spiritual Gifts Assessments (24 schools)
• Enneagram (19 schools)
• StrengthsFinder (19 schools)
How many of these measure the process of change within a person? As far as I understand, all of the above tools measure things that don't really change. They address static gifts, strengths, temperaments, etc. I did an MBTI test in Bible College close to twenty years ago and I'm fairly certain my four letters are the same today.
It might be time to take a closer look at better measuring tools for personal and spiritual formation.
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