5 Reasons I'm Excited for the Gospel-Centered Enneagram

As you know, I work with the Enneagram. Why does it excite me so much? Here are five reasons.

Because the Enneagram is a tool that unlocks more.

The real work of the Enneagram isn’t becoming an expert in the Enneagram. That’s like a gardener becoming an expert in the shovel but stopping there. No, expertise in using a shovel helps her garden better, and understanding the Enneagram can help you in whatever ways that matter to you.

So if the Gospel matters to you, you can aim the Enneagram at the Gospel and see what you find out. And that’s exactly what we’re doing here.

Because we’re aiming the Enneagram at the Gospel.

Which means looking at the Gospel through the lens of the Enneagram. We’ll look at salvation from God, intimacy with God, and outreach for God through the different Enneagram Types. You see, we each have:

• different sin patterns,
• ways we try to “add” to Jesus to make us more acceptable, and
• misappropriations of the Gospel

that we may not even be aware of.

But in their new book, Becoming Us: Using the Enneagram to Create a Thriving Gospel-Centered Marriage, Beth and Jeff McCord write:

“If becoming like Christ is the goal of the Christian, and the Gospel is the power of God to get us there, then growth in our particular Type should be in alignment with the truth of the Gospel.”

We’ll look at the Enneagram’s three levels of alignment with the Gospel.

Because I’m rediscovering the Gospel and it’s utterly fantastic.

I really am and it really is. I’m rediscovering the Gospel and I can’t really think of anything better. I do feel giddy as a child to be in the family of God forever. I do feel stable as an oak to be so covered by Christ that I don’t need other people’s approval or acceptance because I already have it from God. I do feel free as a bird to not have to obey the Law perfectly to be okay.

Because the Enneagram can improve intimacy with God.

The Enneagram offers clues into what can improve or impede closeness with God. Doesn’t it make sense to learn more about yourself so you can draw closer to God? Doesn’t it make sense to identify those “intimacy blockers” so you can have the relationship with God that you have dreamed of?

The Enneagram holds clues to how you see yourself, how you relate to God, and how to move closer to Him. Is it because you don’t slow down, don’t want to let your guard down, don’t feel it’s necessary? Let’s dig in.

Jesus said:

Remain in me, as I also remain in you.” (John 15:4)

Because the Enneagram informs the work you’re meant to do.

Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

That means before you were born, God already laid out good works for you. I can’t help but think he planned them in accordance with who you are. In other workd, the good works you’re meant to accomplish were given with you in mind. So, the more you learn about yourself, the better equipped to do what you were created to do.