MVP Training & Formation

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Formation for faithful leadership. Explore courses for CREs, pastors, elders, deacons, and other church leaders.

Training scheduleLeadership pathsCatalog source: Church Commons

Course information is maintained by Church Commons and refreshed automatically on MVP. Course numbers identify curriculum areas, not a learner’s experience. Prerequisites apply only when listed.

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FORM 103 · 100 Series

Self-Knowledge

Personal Formation

About this course

This course focuses on developing self-knowledge as a core component of faithful and sustainable ministry. Through guided reflection and the use of selected personality and leadership assessments, students are invited to explore their unique personhood as members of the body of Christ and as leaders called into commissioned or ordained ministry. The course emphasizes that self-knowledge serves growth, accountability, and humility rather than excuse-making or self-justification.

Assessments used in this course may include, but are not limited to, the Change-Style Indicator, the Enneagram, and CliftonStrengths (developed by Gallup). These tools are employed as lenses for reflection rather than as definitive descriptions of identity or capacity. Students are encouraged to consider how temperament, patterns of response, leadership instincts, and stress behaviors shape their ministry—particularly in times of conflict, transition, and uncertainty.

The course attends explicitly to the concept of the shadow side of leadership, helping students recognize both gifts and vulnerabilities, and to cultivate practices of growth, accountability, and self-regulation in service of the church.

Course objectives

  • Describe the purpose and limits of personality and leadership assessments within Christian formation and ministry.
  • Reflect on personal patterns of leadership, communication, change-response, and stress through guided use of assessment tools.
  • Articulate how individual gifts and tendencies contribute to the life and health of the body of Christ.
  • Identify potential shadow sides, blind spots, and habitual responses that may impact ministry relationships and decision-making.
  • Demonstrate a theological understanding of personhood that resists using personality as an excuse for harmful or ineffective leadership.
  • Integrate self-knowledge into practices of spiritual formation, boundaries, supervision, and ongoing growth.
  • Be oriented to help others grow in their self-knowledge

Who may participate?

All church leaders unless a prerequisite or a particular offering states otherwise.