Risk Tolerance Inventory (RTI):

A Risk discipleship tool to help increase risk capacity for facing danger and persecution for our Lord.

Click below for the RTI Tool

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The Why:

To change, we must know our starting point. When it comes to increasing individual and organizational risk capacity, we first determine our perceived risk tolerance.

When we know our starting point, we can begin to develop the areas of our lives in deeper intimacy with Christ through working through fear management, becoming risk literate, and honing our skills from the 12 Aspects of Becoming Shrewd as a Serpent.

There is a holistic pathway involving our minds, hearts, and emotions; the pathway is both practical and theological.

The saying, “I just trust God” is spiritual naivete and blind faith that does not honor the minds God gave us. The hardest places left to reach for Christ are hard for a reason, and people can be discipled into antifragile faith that can withstand the adversities of these situations for the love of our Lord and His love for us.

The RTI has 3 primary purposes:

1.  Individual Awareness: Help global workers become aware of their risk tendencies.

2. Community Understanding: Understand how a person’s risk tolerance may impact the community (marriage, team, organization) 

3.  Action and Discipleship: Identify specific areas of growth and further training as they prepare for their calling.

About the Tool:

This tool is a discipleship tool designed to be used for those preparing to go to cross-cultural work and for on-field staff wishing to grow in their risk skills and theology. It was developed by a team of mission, security, risk professionals, and psychologists.

It incorporates questions related to aspects of risk aversion and risk taking tendencies in areas such as:

  • Risk Assessment

  • Risk Mitigation

  • Leadership and Followership

  • Emotion Regulation

  • Stewardship

  • Impulsivity

  • Self awareness in volatility and uncertainty

Related aspects connected to risk taking behavior have to do with the Big 5 Personality Traits: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and additional behaviors such as sensation seeking, impulsivity, thrill and adventure, disinhibition, and boredom susceptibility.

For Further Research:

The RTI is in beta form. To our knowledge, this is the only tool attempting to collect information on how Christo-centric faith impacts risk tolerance and risk aversion. We are collecting the data, but welcome researchers who want to improve the tool. We invite PhD students and researchers who would like to refine the tool to include the Five-Factor Model of Personality Traits, although these are touched on implicitly in the present form of the tool (neuroticism, openness, agreeableness, extraversion, conscientiousness) to contact us.

Feedback

We welcome your feedback. Contact us with questions and comments.

 

The Development Team:

  1. Dr. Anna Hampton, Risk Specialist, Barnabas International

  2. Neal Hampton, Risk Specialist, Barnabas International

  3. Dr. Stefan Henger, Senior Impact Director/GEM Germany Director

  4. Yolande Korkie, CEO & Co-Founder, Crisis Response Network

  5. Edward Nye, AGWM Global Security Director

  6. Jake Phillips, Director of International Operations, Concilium.us

    Clinical Reviewers

  7. Dr. Karen Carr, Ph.D., Licensed Clinical Psychologist (LCP), Counseling Team Leader for Barnabas International

  8. Daniel S. Onoe, M.A., Doctoral Student, Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University

  9. Dr. Charlie Schaefer, Ph.D., Licensed Clinical Psychologist (LCP), Barnabas International

(This tool is made freely available for the global body of Christ but does incur costs to maintain. We rely on donations for our work. If you find it helpful, please consider making a donation or buy us a coffee - see below.)