The Gospel for Every Enneagram (GHFC Elective: Lesson 1)

Funny Story

People are funny. Aren’t they? I find them funny. The other day I went grocery shopping with my older two kids—Lee and Rose. My third was in summer pre-school. And while we were driving to the store, the kids devised a plan that I should buy some canned goods for them so they could leave the food out in our alley for homeless people. People frequently go up and down our alley and look through the trash for cans.

So my daughter says, “We should put up a table and put the food on the table for the homeless people.”

And my son, Lee replies, “We don’t have a table. We can’t use our desks and we can’t use the kitchen table. People will steal it.”

Rose says, “No, we can use that table in the garage with the ripped top.”

Lee replies, “Someone could still steal it!”

Rose says, “We can put a sign on it that says, ‘This food is for homeless people. Take some food. Not the table.’”

Lee: “That’s too long to write. Why don’t we just say ‘Free Food’?”

Rose: Because what if rich people come and see all the food and take it.-Lee: Rich people don’t like canned food, Rosie."

There was more discussion that devolved into name-calling and sticking out of tongues and finally shoving Benny’s empty car seat back and forth at each other until I intervened and suggested they both make signs and tape both to the table.

So we do. We get home. They get out the junky table and make their signs. Lee’s sign says, “Free Food” and Rose’s says, “Free food supplies. welcome poor. take what you really really need.”

And I suggest we pray for whoever takes the food. Lee complains about the heat and races inside before I can start. So we follow. Inside Rose sits on the couch, and my son decides to fall on her because, you know, we all need just a little bit more chaos in our lives.Naturally, Rose pinches and scratches Lee back, which enrages him—for what reason, I can't comprehend—and proceeds to go at her tooth and nail. So I do what all reasonable mothers do, I sit on my son to keep his hands off my daughter while she flirts with danger and mocks his inability to reach her.

Above the din I say, “Let’s pray!” After the prayer, they run off to their rooms. My daughter, smug and my son, angry. And I was sitting by myself on the couch, I thought, well, that’s church for you. Two well-meaning people given gifts by God to do ministry together, fight over how to publicize their ministry and then the Holy Spirit has to sit on them and interpret their moans into prayers to God.

Intro:

In the Body of Christ, we are many parts—Hallelujah and God help us. We reflect and value different aspects of God. And we seek after the Lord in different ways too. We also hunger after God differently and when we don’t fill up on him, we ache for God differently. You know when you’re hungry and you don’t eat, you start to not function very well? Some people get angry, or lethargic, or they don’t notice they're hungry at all.

Likewise, we were born hungry for the Lord, and we manage that hunger in different ways. Some people take what they think they need; Others withdraw and seek solace in detaching; And still others give to get.
The bottom line is we’re all hungry, and even when we come to know Jesus, we have to learn how to think and act and feel out of the fullness of Christ instead of from the hunger of our empty selves.But this process takes up all our earthly days.

And we are so prone to malfunctioning when we are not, as Jesus said in John 6, eating his flesh and drinking his blood daily. Or if that’s too gory for you: if we are not daily in communion with him.I don’t just mean spending time in quiet prayer and Bible reading. 

But doing the will of God like Jesus said in John 4—that his food was to do the will of God. To be in communion with God is also a safe place where we abide—mentally, like John 15 says in the I-am-the-Vine-you-are-the-branches-section. And then also in John 15, Jesus tells them to abide means to keep his commandments, namely to love others as God has loved us. To be in communion with God is something we give up that benefits others, which is what I think love is.

If I had to summarize what it means to be in communion with God, I’d say it’s having a growing faith, that is put to work in all circumstances. And up until somewhat recently, my faith was only working in my quiet times with God and not so much the rest of the day.

 
There was some sort of disconnect, and I noticed this and asked God, “Lord, my faith doesn’t seem to be making motherhood any easier. Isn’t my faith supposed to help me enjoy life more? What am I missing?”

And then my aunt, Terri Taylor, invited me to an Enneagram Seminar and things began to come into the light. The dark part of my heart began to come into the light.

The Enneagram’s three needs

The Enneagram charts our needs and explains how we try to get these needs met on our own.
They divide human needs into three main groups: Our need for love, power, and security.To be loved includes to be thoroughly known inside and out and accepted no matter our successes or failures. It's to know someone delights in us and enjoys meeting our needs without expecting anything in return. The Enneagram numbers that most feel this need are the 2, 3, and 4.

The need for power includes the ability to influence circumstances around us, control ourselves, and the ability to let go of control. The Enneagram numbers that most feel this need are the 8, 9, and 1.

To feel safe or secure doesn't mean no harm will ever befalls us. It’s knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that we're going to be okay no matter what happens. The Enneagram numbers that most feel this need are the 5, 6, 7.

We need all three of these things, but we tend to feel one of these needs more than the others. I think—and this is Abby speaking— that is our particular way we hunger after the Lord corresponds to that the way we were made to uniquely reflect our almighty, beautiful, and complex God.

Abby’s Chart

Basic personality typing focuses on strengths weaknesses. And we’re all supposed to appreciate each other and live in harmony. The Enneagram brings in motives—which by the way is no real invention of the Enneagram. People have always had ulterior motives. But the Enneagram shows how doing STRENGTHS for the wrong motives results in certain weaknesses. Or let’s use Bible language: “Those who who live . . . according to the flesh . . . produce works of the flesh. They cannot please God. Indeed they cannot. They are filled with anger, pride, deceit, envy, greed, fear . . .” Or let’s use our hungry for God analogy. We hunger for God like this, in order to get these needs met. But that just produces this kind of character and this sin.

The confusing part here is what people identify as their strength’s. And they are strengths. These things are good gifts from God. Just like good knees and a clear complexion are good gifts. And God gives these strengths to anyone. But we tend to over-identify with our strengths and believe this is who we are. People applaud us for these strengths. Those strengths become the way by which we support ourselves through life.

In fact they becomes the very thing that keeps us from surrendering to the Lord. Makes sense of why the Bible says blessed are poor in spirit. They sooner realize they don’t have anything to offer. They need the Lord. We all need the Lord, but some of us are fooling ourselves into believing we’re okay with our strengths. We’re happy if the Lord just leaves us alone.

The back of this handout by the way is the freedom that God invites us into that we’ll be going over the next 3 weeks. By the way the Enneagram isn’t normally presented like this. In this elective we’re going to be focusing on where the Bible and the Enneagram overlap.

Disclaimers

I need to offer some disclaimers about the EnneagramOrigin and those associated with the Enneagram are a mixed bag: Sufi Muslims, Chris Heuertz (spiritual abuse allegations, Zondervan suspended publication of books), Richard Rohr—Franscician Friar

I see the Enneagram like a microscope, like a tool. I don’t know who invented the microscope, but I’m all for using the microscope to study God’s world. I intend to share about the Enneagram as I understand it in light of the Bible.

Next disclaimer: some people have used the Enneagram like a horoscope.Who should I marry, who should be my friend, who should I work for… Why did that person just do that to me, let me consult the Enneagram . . .

The problem isn’t the system but the people’s reliance and trust in the system in place of God. People throughout time have been doing this—improperly placing their trust in systems or people or organizations. God is our ultimate guide in life, not the Enneagram.

Last disclaimer: a lot of Enneagram literature isn’t Christian: They don’t attribute God as the source of all good things, sin is not the reason for all of our troubles—It’s our parents or upbringing or environment—
Trust in Christ doesn’t solve our deficiencies. Each author offers their own solution instead, which if frequently to just believe in yourself.

So on your handout I’ve listed three books, which I think most align with the Bible. These are the ones I’ve used for this elective as well as the Bible. Marilyn Vancil: Self to Lose; Self to Find This one is like the Enneagram for beginners. The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective by Andreas Ebert and Richard Rohr. This one is more serious Enneagram, gets into the origin and more details about each number
The Enneagram and Prayer by Barbara Metz and John Burchill. This one is great in light of the prayer series we’ve been doing. This one has verses specific for each strength and weakness of each number as well as suggestions of ways to pray in light of all that.

Why Share About the Enneagram

So with all these disclaimers, why would we want to teach about the Enneagram? The big reason: it’s meaningful to me is because the Lord used it to show me where I could fill-up on him. It’s trendy right now even among non-Christians, so it can be a great vehicle for talking about the gospel. The language of the Enneagram gives Christians new ways to talk about the gospel. We need the gospel to be told and retold to us as we experience different things and language changes and we change. It helps our faith to grow. A faith that doesn’t grow becomes a burden to us. And lastly, God is in the business of redeeming things with questionable origins. 

The world is fairly strewn with discoveries and inventions and traditions that are man’s way of trying to survive here without God. But these things can be used as the platters upon which to serve up the gospel: Tick-tok, facebook, Halloween, the theory of evolution, psychology, the environmentalist movement, the sexual revolution, space exploration, etc...

We have no reason to fear even if man intends it for evil, God can use it for good, to show how he too is involved in our social lives and sexuality and science. In fact, he invented these things.

VII.Taking a test

I think you’d find this elective more helpful, if you took an Enneagram test, but you certainly don’t have to. The information for that is on your handout:https://enneagramtest.net/ — free version (Mumbo Jumbo)
https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/ — more official paid version

However, the point at the end of this elective is not to know your number, but rather to know how we might be tempted to sin and to then remember that because of Christ, we don’t have to fall into those traps anymore. So that’s all we’re going to cover for today.

Link to this lesson recorded: https://www.facebook.com/granadaheightsfriends

Link to Lesson 2