What is the Enneagram?

The Enneagram? Really? Isn’t that a quasi-spiritual personality typing system invented to help us stroke our egos and feed our seemingly insatiable desire to learn more about our favorite subject: ourselves? The Enneagram, though some would argue is rooted in an ancient framework, has undergone a resurgence of popularity in recent years.

Propelled by social media, its primary audience millennial evangelicals who are more comfortable with disposition than doctrine, constitution than catechism, life coaches than laity, and self-expressiveness than self-denial, but the Enneagram doesn’t need to be at odds with the Ecclesia.

That said, it’s important to point out the obvious fact that the Enneagram is not Scripture, though it may help to think of it as a system of patterns we see in creation (and in each other!). Not Special Revelation, but simple, and often profound, observations about General Revelation.

The Enneagram and Our Creative Calling

So how can a personality typing system help us live out our Creator’s Creative Calling on our lives and change the world? Well, that of course, is the aim of much of the Creative Enneagram content framework, but suffice to say that the Enneagram proper is merely a tool, not a destination. Our focus should be on our Creator, His calling on our lives, the culture around us He has called us to serve, and those we are to creatively collaborate with in love along the way.

The Trap of Personality Typing Tools…

The trap of any personality-typing tool, or anything that brings more self-knowledge, is that we can use it to draw increasingly inward, narrowing our lens to focus on the self rather than widening our aperture to serve a world in need. And yet, as many great theologians have argued, from John Calvin [1] to Dr. Russell Moore, [2] a certain amount of self-knowledge is important, even necessary, to live out our Creator’s calling.

If the Word of God is a mirror, reflecting back to us all the areas we need the Spirit’s transforming power to change, may the self-knowledge of our own Creative Type be a small additional reflection—not even remotely on the level of Scripture! — that motivates us to walk by the Spirit in order to use our giftings to change the culture around us.

The Enneagram as Observational Tool

So whether you believe the Enneagram is a fully-formed system for life change (I would urge caution) or simply a tool for better observing and understanding how God has made us (I think you can tell where I fall), whether you fluently speak the language of Enneagram triads (default ways of relating to the world with head, heart, or gut), wings (sharing characteristics of adjacent types), stress points (the negative qualities you tend to exhibit when unhealthy), security numbers (the positive qualities you tend to exhibit when healthy), or whether that terminology is entirely new to you, I would urge you to think of the Enneagram as merely a tool, that offers observational, and not theological insights so that we can better understand ourselves, those around us, and our calling to create for change.

What is The Creative Enneagram?

Okay, but The Creative Enneagram, what is that? Well, I’m really glad you asked, and that’s where I think this gets really exciting for all of us who want to use our creative giftings to, well, change the world. Take your Creative Enneagram assessment today!

[1] John Calvin (Inst. I.1.i)

[2] Signposts with Russell Moore, Episode 120 https://www.russellmoore.com/2018/05/18/what-about-the-enneagram