What if there were a tool that could help you understand yourself better and reveal your core motivations and fears? What if that tool also could help explain your spouse? Could it possibly be the key to greater understanding, better communication and a way to improve your marriage?

That tool is the Enneagram, a centuries-old map that helps decipher the deep motivations of different personality types. Coupled with a Gospel-centered Christian worldview, as presented by Enneagram coaches Pastor Jeff and Beth McCord, it has proven powerful in promoting not just self-awareness, but marital satisfaction.

The McCords are co-founders of Your Enneagram Coach personal coaching and mediation practice. Their Christian approach to the Enneagram showcases the transformative power of combining the “truth of the gospel and the tools of the Enneagram.”

Beth first became interested in the Enneagram 20 years ago as a way to overcome turbulence in the couple’s young marriage. During their first six years of marriage, they added two children to their family while Jeff was completing his degree from Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis. 

“We got married at age 20, and we didn’t know ourselves very well at the time,” Beth said.  “A Christian counselor recommended the Enneagram, and I dove headlong into it. It brought so much clarity into the why’s behind the way I thought, felt and behaved.”

Jeff saw potential for the Enneagram’s use to promote better understanding in relationships, and the couple started presenting to groups. They saw the connection between the core longings and motivations described for each of the nine personality types in the Enneagram and the fulfillment found in Christ through the Gospel. In 2016 they started their business based on the Enneagram. Coincidentally, several popular secular books were released at the same time. Interest in the Enneagram increased, and people gravitated to the McCord’s Gospel-centered approach. Now they have written 10 books, trained Enneagram coaches in 20+ countries, and reach more than 3 million globally each month via their type assessment, website, podcast and webinars.  They pledge to help people see themselves with astonishing clarity and break free from self-condemnation, fear and shame by knowing and experiencing the unconditional love and freedom found in Christ.

What is it, anyway?

The symbol of the Enneagram depicts a nine-pointed geometric figure. The word itself is formed from the Greek words, “ennea,” which means nine, and “gramma,” which means that which is drawn. Each of the nine personality types presents a valid way of seeing the world and explains why someone thinks, feels and behaves in particular ways. Beth describes someone’s type as their internal GPS, which can be used to navigate their own world as well as relate to others.

1- Reformer

2- Supporter

3- Achiever

4- Individualist

5- Investigator

6- Guardian

7- Optimist

8- Protector

9- Accommodator

Types are determined by an individual’s core fears, desires, weaknesses and longings. “What are we trying to run away from? What do we desire? What are we striving to fill? What problem do we perpetually stumble over? What message does your heart long to hear?” When determining your type, look at why you do what you do, Beth said. “People might do the same thing for different motivations, depending on their type.” 

Beth used the example of the desire to have a clean home to illustrate this point. For a Type 1, a clean home represents the right thing to do; for a 2, it’s a warm hug that helps them nurture others. For a 3, a clean home reflects their image and need for admiration; while a 4 enjoys the beauty and uniqueness of their home’s decor. It’s important for a 5 that resources are in their right places; while a clean home represents duty, loyalty and provision to a 6. A 7 keeps their home clean because they don’t want chores to prevent them from the next fun thing; while an 8 wants to control their environment. Lastly, the 9 just wants to relax and be peaceful.

Find a free assessment at Yourenneagramcoach.com to determine your type.

The incorporation of the Gospel as the fulfillment of the core longings and desires is what makes the McCord’s approach unique.

“The Enneagram is an amazing tool, but without the Gospel, you won’t experience the life-giving transformation you are looking for,” Jeff said.

The Gospel speaks a unique message through Christ that the heart of each of the nine types longs to hear. 

“I see them light up with hope, transformation and joy,” Beth said. “Others address longing messages, but there is no solution other than somehow to find it for yourself,” she said. “We were created to reach back to God. That is the transformative power of our lives. We are trying to get from the world what only Jesus Christ can fulfill. We need to reorient our heart and let his spring of living water flow.”

“With the Enneagram, I can see my own shortcomings, sins and weaknesses,” Jeff said, “but the hope of Christ is that it has all been taken care of by His life, death, resurrection and ascension, which frees us to have abundant life.”

So What?

YourEnneagramcoach.com can bring clarity and insight about why you do what you do, but what now? How does someone use this information to actually bring about transformation? Once someone knows their type and can recognize their strengths and weaknesses, they can start to steer their internal life back toward the healthiest direction for their personality type. As Jeff puts it, “Observation is not transformation. Discovery is not recovery. Each type has a beautiful destination where Christ is guiding us to be more like Him.” This is a state called Alignment, when someone is at maximal spiritual and emotional health.  

It can be tempting to use the Enneagram as a sword or shield. “Type-casting” can be weaponized or used as a crutch to hide behind. “We can justify our responses instead of relating to each other’s truths,” Jeff said. They warn against “Assumicide,” when we make wrong assumptions about one another’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors, which they’ve found harms relationships.

Instead, the McCords inspire people to “use this amazing tool for others. It is like a non-judgmental friend. God is not disappointed or surprised by you. He meets us where we are,” Jeff said.

One of the resources the McCords have created to unleash the Gospel-centered power of the Enneagram in someone’s life is Discovering You, an online course that helps people “wake up to how God has called you and previews your healthiest self.” It includes a description and application for each personality type, a 16-page workbook and four coaching sessions. Discovering You will help someone discover yellow-flag behaviors and patterns of thinking, levels of alignment, wings, triads, and paths moving in directions of growth, stress, and blindspots. If this all sounds complicated, rest assured, Discovering You unpacks the information in a way that makes it easy to understand and presents steps forward toward personal growth.

One such step, applying the new knowledge to relationships. 

“We marry or couple up based upon our own character defects. As a six I’m looking for the peacefulness of Beth’s nine,” Jeff said. “That can become a gift that God has given a couple or a hurdle. It is inevitable, what first attracted you will begin to irritate you.”

“It is like we have different colored glasses on, yet we think the lenses are clear,” Beth said. “We can take our lens off and put another’s on. God creates us uniquely different. The Enneagram helps us have understanding, compassion, grace, mercy, love and forgiveness for each other. Now we can ask clarifying questions and be curious rather than attacking and defending. We honor our differences so together we can make something altogether new.”

“The Gospel leads us to reconciliation and restoration with our spouse. Without it, we have limited growth and resources, just our own will-power,” Jeff said.

The McCords inspire couples to join them on the Enneagram journey with a date night experience corresponding to their marriage curriculum, Becoming Us that introduces their approach to the Enneagram and whets the appetite for its use in marriage.

“It’s a great experience,” Jeff said. “We introduce the principles and give an appetizer to the Becoming Us course and how people can apply it practically through teaching and illustrations. The date night is like a trailer to a movie. It can be really helpful when someone’s spouse is reluctant.” Videos of the McCords coaching couples to address conflict and change marriages are highlights.

One such example involved a long-married couple who endured a daily argument that was stealing the joy from their marriage. The man loved to make smoothies for breakfast and had gone to great trouble to develop the perfect recipe. As a 3, he desired to feel competent, admired, respected and praised.  His Type 2 wife’s desire was to feel appreciated, loved and to insert herself into other’s lives with service she believed was helpful and would earn her the love she sought. 

She wanted to “help” her husband make his smoothies and kept offering him suggestions. “Do you need a banana? How about some blueberries?” Rather than seeing her desire to help as loving, her husband felt disrespected. She was trying to offer her best, but in this misaligned dance, it landed on him as if she were saying, “You’re not good enough.” He felt like a failure and got prickly and withdrew. She then felt unloved. This was happening every morning for months!

Once this dynamic was explained, and the coach interpreted the motivations behind their actions, the couple could realign their dance to be more positive and productive. The wife could ask, “What’s the best way I could support your smoothie making?” He could honor her by offering her a way to participate that didn’t make him feel incompetent or disrespected. They were taught to use clarity statements and questions to uncover root problems and move forward.

Recently the McCords streamed a date night around the globe to thousands of couples. Beth estimates they are reaching three million people worldwide every month. Not only does Becoming Us provide a free personality assessment, it includes a free marriage plan. The first half of Becoming Us explains the Enneagram then transitions to its application to marriage, Becoming Us Together. The back of the book provides descriptions for each couple combination to allow spouses to better understand each other and their marital dynamic.

Those interested can dive deeper into an eight-module course to address emotional health, spirituality, communication, conflict, and family of origin from the perspective of their specific couple dynamic. The McCords have developed 45 different courses for those modules to target each prospective couple combination, including a 64-page workbook that lists specifics for each couple type.

“If you wished you had a textbook on your marriage, this is the closest thing to that,” Jeff said. “That alone is just gold,” Beth agreed. “It describes the dance between you, what trips you up and how to describe your dynamic. The course lays out a vision and a path how to get a little further in your transformational process as a couple.”

“Most couples don’t have these kinds of conversations,” Beth said. “When there are hurdles in marriage, a coach can give strategies to help them rediscover the spouse they married and have the marriage they’ve always longed for.”

Jeff referred to the gold standards in marriage research, the Gottmans, who describe marriage masters vs. disasters. “It’s not that the masters couples don’t fight, it’s that they repair. We’re not going to remove conflict, we’ll still see things differently. There will be opportunities to extend grace, to come against the character defects of sin. It’s a path forward to see who your spouse can become – to connect during conflict instead of getting isolated.”

They laughed when asked, “Is there a wrong couple type?” “We all fear that ours is the worst,” Jeff said. “There are no bad couple types. There are unhealthy marriages. We challenge all types to love well and give space for differences. You are never beyond the reach of God’s grace.”

“There’s also a vision of healthiness. Any two types aligned with the Gospel will have a sweet relationship. Focus on what God has for you and enter into the dynamic, come side by side and look toward health together.”

Find the next virtual or live date night, see how to take a free Enneagram assessment, sign up for Becoming Us or order other resources through BecomingUs.com.

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