What if there was a tool that could accelerate your spiritual growth, enhance emotional health, and propel your leadership skills to new heights? Our guests for today, renowned ministry leaders Bill and Kristi Gaultiere, have unlocked this potential with the Enneagram. Throughout the episode, they enlighten us on how this transformative tool can be integrated into coaching and retreats, and how it addresses the emotional roots of our personality types. They share valuable insights into the essence of the Enneagram, rebuff common criticisms, and emphasize the importance of a Christ-centered approach to emotional and spiritual wellness.
Building on their in-depth understanding of the Enneagram, Bill and Kristi guide us through the association between personality types and core emotions like anger, shame, and anxiety. They reveal how self-awareness, combined with the healing power of Christ and community, can transform these emotions and foster emotional honesty. Furthermore, our insightful guests unravel the unique struggles faced by pastors and leaders in their ministry. From maintaining a healthy church culture to navigating the overwhelming demands of their roles, they share how the Enneagram can provide clarity, promote self-awareness, and instill trust in God's plan.
In the final part of our discussion, we delve deeper into the potential of the Enneagram for fostering emotional intelligence and empathy in relationships. The conversation seeks to reshape misunderstandings about empathy, underlining its role in love, compassion, and understanding others. Together, we explore the concept of an emotional alarm, a wake-up call to prevent unhealthy behaviors. This episode serves as a comprehensive guide for anyone striving for a balanced, Christ-like approach in their personal relationships and ministry. So, tune in and join us on this enlightening journey towards self-discovery and spiritual growth.
Reach out! nicki@soulshepherding.org
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What if there was a tool that could accelerate your spiritual growth, enhance emotional health, and propel your leadership skills to new heights? Our guests for today, renowned ministry leaders Bill and Kristi Gaultiere, have unlocked this potential with the Enneagram. Throughout the episode, they enlighten us on how this transformative tool can be integrated into coaching and retreats, and how it addresses the emotional roots of our personality types. They share valuable insights into the essence of the Enneagram, rebuff common criticisms, and emphasize the importance of a Christ-centered approach to emotional and spiritual wellness.
Building on their in-depth understanding of the Enneagram, Bill and Kristi guide us through the association between personality types and core emotions like anger, shame, and anxiety. They reveal how self-awareness, combined with the healing power of Christ and community, can transform these emotions and foster emotional honesty. Furthermore, our insightful guests unravel the unique struggles faced by pastors and leaders in their ministry. From maintaining a healthy church culture to navigating the overwhelming demands of their roles, they share how the Enneagram can provide clarity, promote self-awareness, and instill trust in God's plan.
In the final part of our discussion, we delve deeper into the potential of the Enneagram for fostering emotional intelligence and empathy in relationships. The conversation seeks to reshape misunderstandings about empathy, underlining its role in love, compassion, and understanding others. Together, we explore the concept of an emotional alarm, a wake-up call to prevent unhealthy behaviors. This episode serves as a comprehensive guide for anyone striving for a balanced, Christ-like approach in their personal relationships and ministry. So, tune in and join us on this enlightening journey towards self-discovery and spiritual growth.
Reach out! nicki@soulshepherding.org
JOIN OUR NEW ONLINE LEARNING PLATFORM!
ENTER CODE - 75ULC2023 for 75% off!
Hello and welcome to the brand new American Reformation Podcast. We long to see the wider American Christian Church fall more in love with Jesus by learning from the practices of the early church and other eras of discipleship multiplication. We want to hear from you, make sure you comment and leave a review, wherever you're watching or listening, to tell us what God is doing in your life or how you feel about today's conversation. Lord, have your way in us. Let's dive in.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the American Reformation Podcast, tim Allman. Here and I have two of my favorite leaders that I have been following from afar for some time now last three or so years Bill and Christy Galtier. They have been counseling and ministering to people for 30 years and are authors of the book Journey of the Soul which, going back about three years now, we had you and Jake Besslin and I were leading on our lead time podcast. Had you do, I think, a two part series there. You can go back and listen to that. But they have a brand new book that just came out Healthy Feelings and Thriving Faith Healthy Feelings and Thriving Faith.
Speaker 2:Now, before you say I'm a leader or I'm a guy, I don't talk about my feelings much. You know there may be some pastors listen that like we, even theologically, in some confessional, you know, conservative church bodies. We even can theologically justify Bill and Christy not talking about feelings, and I'll give you the justification. It's because God is above our feelings. God is the one who receives us, claims us, apart from our desire for him, and yet talking about our feelings is a very, very healthy thing to do. We are not brains in a stick. This is going back to some other books right, we're not initially thinking things, we are feeling things. So before we get into the book and all the good work you're doing with Soul Shepherding, a standard opening question how are you praying for Reformation? You get to see the American Christian church from a variety of different perspectives and, as you look at the wider American church, how are you praying for Reformation?
Speaker 3:Well, in Soul Shepherding, we work with all kinds of pastors, missionaries, leaders, church people, spiritual directors, coaches, christians who are helping other Christians, and so that's really our prayer for the American church and for renewal is to get the leaders into conversations with each other, bring them away on retreat, so we spend five days with leaders groups of 30 or 40, and give them lots of space to rest and have some deep conversations and prayer times, and then we mentor them in scripture, meditation, solitude and silence, soul talk, conversations where there's empathy. But the heart of all this it really would be our deepest prayer for the church and for the Reformation that we need is that we would be enthralled with Jesus with the fullness of our thinking and our feeling. We'd be captivated with Christ and devoted to Jesus in all that we say and do, because he pulls us all straight and into the space that we need to be in, loving God and loving neighbor.
Speaker 4:And as we look to Jesus as our model, as we look to Jesus too as our model, someone who lived the life as a human being on earth, who actually models for us healthy feelings and thriving faith we see Jesus had emotions and he dealt with them in ways that were healthy, drawing greater intimacy with his father and inviting us into that as well. Not trying to repress emotion or ignore emotion, but actually using it like God has created it for, as emotion it moves us, it can energize us. If we are not repressing our emotions, emotions can make really great servants, terrible masters, but under God they're given to us for good, and so we want people to be emotionally and spiritually whole and healthy in Christlikeness.
Speaker 2:Amen, amen, so so good. How did you fall in love with the Enneagram as a ministry tool? I've heard people kind of downgrade it as kind of its pagan, its eastern Buddhist tool. How did you fall in love with the Enneagram? Because I'm a fan. If you don't know this about me, I'm a three, I'm a hardwired three, the achiever driven, you know, and the shadow side of shame, it just speaks my language. Who really knows me, like the deepest parts of me and who will be kind to me. So the writing you did about me nails me. Nails my wife, who's a peacemaker, she's just a sweetheart. A lot of pastors' wives, I think you guys said, are peacemakers, and so we're fans of the Enneagram but then also understanding some of its roots that may not be in the way of Jesus. So how do you answer that when people say this is a pagan tool that shouldn't be a part of discipleship?
Speaker 3:Well, what I learned in seminary is that all truth is God's truth, and so all truth is not in the Bible, but the Bible is all true and all truth is consistent with the teachings of the Bible. And so the Enneagram theory of personality, the way we teach it, the way we understand it, the way we use it in coaching, in our social operating institute retreats, is very much in tune with Scripture and in a Christ centered model, the theory is very open to the approach of different teachers. So there are some Enneagram teachers, certainly, that are not Christians. There are some Christian teachers that don't seem to be very centered on Jesus. There is some thinking in some of these teachers that is very New Age oriented, and so I think the important thing is that we always have our Bible open with any book, any theory, any model that we're using, and we make sure that we are grounded in God's Word.
Speaker 4:But also the computer we're using, the smartphone we're using. We're also spoken into by people that we're not followers of Jesus, and so we don't want to give into a genetic fallacy that if something isn't only used by Christians or followers of Jesus that we can't use it. The Enneagram isn't God, it isn't above God, but it's a tool in God's hand that can be used in really effective ways for His glory and for His kingdom. And I would say why I love the Enneagram is because it helps me grow in intimacy with Jesus. The Enneagram power of this tool is it actually reveals our root sin that we're unconscious of, and I couldn't repent of it until I became conscious of it. And I didn't become conscious until I learned the Enneagram and came to understand what it reveals, which is what we are denying Ways, we're trying to secure ourselves, apart from God is what it reveals.
Speaker 3:So the basic theory is so compatible with a biblical worldview that we've sinned and we've fallen away from God. This goes back to the Desert Fathers and Mothers in the early church with the seven deadly sins that became the nine deadly sins. And so not everybody knows us about the Enneagram, because not all the Enneagram teachers talk about this. Naturally, we like to be positive, we like to be happy, we like to focus on our gifts and all that. But really the Enneagram theory is based on the fact that our personality is formed by sin and stress and denying all that stuff, and so each of the nine types has a basic sin or dysfunction that is bent away from God, bent away from God's grace, bent away from truth, and needs to be reawakened.
Speaker 2:I just preached yesterday on the distinction of law and gospel. It's a very Lutheran thing to do and it's a handle for reading the Bible. We're doing a series called Reading the Bible and Law, Gospel being a center point. One of Luther's best teachings, I think, was this view of the law as sin, which shows me how ugly I am apart from Christ. And then when the identity of Christ, the baptismal reality of Christ, comes upon me, how beautiful I am solely in him. But apart from being killed and crushed by the law, recognizing I have been fearfully and wonderfully made and my identity is not.
Speaker 2:Identity is so huge right. My identity is not in what I do, but what has been done for me through Jesus, his life, death, resurrection, his perfection. It covers me, the hope of the resurrection. I can't raise myself from the dead. I may have a number of good gifts, but man I am, not Jesus. I am radically filled with sin and I radically need the love of Christ. Have you ever thought about the law gospel kind of paradigm being a good handle to help people enter into the Enneagram? This just popped in my head right now, Just curious.
Speaker 3:Well, yes, of course, because the God's law and the word of God comes in and convicts us of our sin, puts words to our struggles, our stress, our emotion, our needs, our conflicts and relationships, and that's important. In how we read the Bible and any spiritual discipline we do that, we would grow in awareness of ourself, including the broken stuff, so that we can then confess that to God. We can receive forgiveness, we can receive healing, and so the Enneagram is just a tool that helps us to do that. It gives us language, and that's really what we're doing in our book. Healthy Feelings. Thriving Faith is we're giving people language for the stuff of their life, their relationships, their faith, and a lot of that is about emotions. It's not all about emotions. It's also about our thoughts and our choices and our decisions and all that. But when we meet somebody we say you know, how are you, how do you feel? How do you feel?
Speaker 2:Hmm, yeah, I love that. Let's go into the four hurts. This paradigm was so, so powerful to me. I've spoken a lot about living above the line and I forget the author of above the line or below the line. You've got these kind of four base emotions. I don't know if you've heard about this, but fear, and the opposite of fear, or living above the line, is the perfect love of Jesus which casts out fear and then, and then pride on the other. On the other hand, which humility this is the way of of Jesus. But I was surprised, and then I agree with the core of it all is this deep, this deep sadness, and around the sadness is anger, shame and and anxiety. So talk about those four, four hurts. That that's the way you organize the book and I thought it was fantastic.
Speaker 3:Yeah well, christian, I have spent a hundred thousand hours collectively in the pool of pain was over the years listening to people, for years as Christian therapists, more recently in coaching and spiritual direction and just in our teaching in our Soul Shepherding Institute, and so we spent a lot of time listening to people, and this is where the anagram really became something that we dove into 20 years ago. But we just saw the power of it for explaining the stuff that people were struggling with in their life, whether it's in the coaching conversation or in the church community, and so we just felt it was so helpful to have this language, this tool that people could learn more about. And so what really would really brought it together for us and why we wrote our book? Because there are some other Christian anagram books out there, but there isn't one that gives you the language about the emotions, the way we do, and then through that emotions draws you into an intimacy with Jesus. So We've found that personality. We all know this if we think about it. But people, relationships, are personalities, very complicated, but when you can find this simplicity and the complexity, it is like hugely helpful, and so that's what we feel like this theory of emotions has done, when you realize that every personality is really organized primarily around anger, shame or Anxiety, and there's an underlying sadness. The problem is that we don't like the core emotion or core hurt that is Distressing us, and so we tend to deny that, and so that's the way the anagram is organized.
Speaker 3:Is that the three of the nine types the, the challenger, eight, the peacemaker, nine and the Reformer, one sometimes called the perfectionist, but I'm a one, so I reformed the title and we called it the reformer, because ones love to improve things. But the eights, nines and ones are Basically formed around anger in very different ways, and but they don't like that, especially the nines and ones, and so they deny that. And then so those are the gut types, and the twos, threes and fours are Are the heart types, and the twos are the helpers. The three, like you, tim, the, the achiever or performer, and then the four is the Individualist or the artisan, the creative, and they are formed around shame and they're trying to deny that or overcome that. And then the last three types the five, six and seven. The five is the observer, the six is the loyalist and the seven is the enthusiast.
Speaker 3:These are the head types. They are primarily formed around fear or anxiety, and again they're trying to deny that. So we've all got issues, experiences in life With anger, shame and anxiety, but there's one that's a core for each type and that's what we show you. And then there is this gentle, tender, needy, broken emotion down in the bottom that most of us don't want to feel, which is sadness, loss, grief, hurt, unmet needs and even longing for God. But it's a very tender place that's down down at the bottom of our hearts. Usually we're hiding that and when we can put our finger on that, get some words for that and feel that and pray through that and Trust somebody safe to talk about what we're sad about. It's the Royal Road to healing and really opens up the door for Christ's likeness.
Speaker 2:Anything to add there, christie I? I was really impressed, christie, by the journey of grief hitting on anger, shame and anxiety. But the you kind of walk through the stages of grief using the, the three kind of circular types. Anything to say about that? The stages of grief connected to the four? Hertz, christie.
Speaker 4:If we will let ourselves really be vulnerable and emotionally honest With our emotions, whether it's the anger, shame or sadness, which actually it's usually more than one of those. Our emotions can tend to stack under each other and Instead of defending against our emotions which is what we do when we are being driven by our enneagram personality type it's a whole mechanism for trying to deny our emotion and avoid that. If we will get emotionally honest, take courage, it's start to get curious about the emotion and start to go into it and bring it into our relationship with God, ambassadors of God and safe communities, then we can do some of the sadness work, some of the the healthy lament that we see even David and the psalmist do in scripture. That's what they're doing. They're working through what we as Therapists, as we learn, getting our doctorate of psychology about the phases of grief and those phases of grief Evolve denial at first, because that's how we first handle it, but then, when we take greater courage and comfort from Jesus and his people, then we can get Honest about the anger. We don't have to act it out, we don't have to be controlled by it, but we can start to Articulate it and get honest about it. We see David do this in the Psalms all the time. Even, you know, rip their teeth out, lord, like he's praying angry prayers, but he's being honest about it. And then we see him begin to calm down and talk about how he's afraid and Get honest about the anxiety and the fear.
Speaker 4:Anxiety we write about because we found this a private practice and through our own lives. That anxiety is often repressed emotion. It's the denial of emotion. We say I'm so stressed out but the reality is we're stressed in because we're denying that emotion. We're not bringing it into the light of our relationship with Jesus, but as we get honest with it, then we're able to get more free of it.
Speaker 4:So the next stage of grief is really an anxious stage or phase where we are in bargaining. We're always trying to figure out what if I could have done it this way, could I have more control? Could I it work? We're Ruminating about all the different ways and that we could try to secure ourselves in that bargaining phase. Then we go into an important part of being able to recognize and feel the sadness.
Speaker 4:That's the depression phase of grief really. But we can get tripped up by shame in that depression phase and begin to reject ourselves. And if we begin to reject ourselves for our emotions where it's, it's gonna sabotage our grief and our healing and it's gonna Interrupt our ability to receive God's grace, because what we really need for our sadness and our loss and our grief is we need God's empathy. That's what the incarnation is Jesus coming to us with perfect empathy, becoming man, coming to experience all that we experienced, suffer, everything we suffered, so that he could empathize with us, and then we can agree with his empathy and his grace and that helps us to recenter more into acceptance as we accept and agree with his grace. That's where we get the freedom, the joy, the love and the peace.
Speaker 2:Who wouldn't want to go on that journey, I mean? But we fight against that. That journey to truly know ourselves and Self-awareness is so, so huge. But we can't. We can't do it on our own right. I mean, I can't absolve my sins, I can't fully expose my heart on my. I need Christ and I need community. That is, that is the key.
Speaker 2:And so let's talk a little bit about you're doing a lot of work with church leaders and really what you're you don't probably use this language, but helping to shape healthy church culture. That's that's what you're doing healthy Christian Community. So you walk alongside a lot of leaders. I mean, I'm asking you to paint with a little bit of a broad brush here. But as you look at pastors in general, it's a difficult time. I mean secularism, declining church attendance, the economy hitting. There's a lot of things that are out of our control, even as it relates to running a nonprofit at church. From a giving perspective, it's a difficult time to to be a pastor. So what words of love and care and empathy would you speak into pastors, especially around maybe one, one or two of the core four Hertz that that pastors in general are dealing with today?
Speaker 3:Well, it's your right, dim is so much stress being a pastor. Today more than ever, there's so many expectations on pastors and there's so much comparison because of the information age that we live in and the internet and just ability to listen to sermons from multiple sources and Learn from multiple sources. So it's very tempting for pastors to just try to be and do all things for all, all people and In the loose sight of the, the call that came to ministry and to serve God, and to lose the sight of our first love, like John writes about in Revelation, and that I mean. To be a pastor, you're, you've experienced a touch of God's love, touch of Jesus, deep forgiveness of your own sins and the mercy of God for you, and you want to share it with people. But the purity of that, that heart and that, that dream, can get bogged down it just in the slog, in the grind of daily ministry and all the stress and the expectations.
Speaker 3:And so, yeah, we, we just love to pour into pastors and All kinds of shepherds who are helping other people. That's really what soul shepherding is. We come alongside the people who are pouring into others and then we pour into them. We get them away from their responsibilities and their work, whether that's through our five-day soul shepherding Institute retreats or through Having them talk with one of our 40 senior spiritual directors. That make a safe place to listen and give empathy, or just reading a book, like healthy feelings, thriving faith.
Speaker 3:But we're just trying to. We're in the corner for pastors and shepherds to care for you, to strengthen you, to listen to you to, to help you rediscover how much you love Jesus, because he loves you so much, and to get back into that Space that you want to be in, that you know that you're in when you're at your best, and that's ministry out of the overflow. And that's true for pastors, for small group leaders, for spiritual directors and coaches, for Christian Christian leaders in the marketplace, all of us. Our best life is when we're in tune with God's loving presence and we're doing what we do with the Lord not only for God. Of course we want to do everything we do for God's glory, but when we can have a sense that it's not just me and my gifts, it's not just me and my muscles, but God is actually with me and I'm counting on God and I'm seeing the hand of God move in my work and my relationships.
Speaker 4:You know we, we love leaders, but leadership is suffering, it is hard Work and oftentimes leaders get isolated.
Speaker 4:They don't have safe places where they can be honest. They're moving very quickly with so much to do on mission, such a good mission, so compelling, but they don't feel they have time to stop and receive anything for themselves or even tune in to the health of their soul, maintain the engine of their soul in a sense. Oftentimes they are, and that that hurrying us can lead to a lot of anxiety. Oftentimes they're experiencing a lot of broken boundaries and which we write about anger as a result of broken boundaries, and then shame is self-rejection, and they often are very much in tune with their weaknesses and leadership. We run into them, we can't avoid them, and we also have people that are constantly throwing them in our face because we are, we are sinners and under stress especially, that comes out and is exposed and then if we Recoil and shame and hidden us, it keeps us from receiving God's grace. So these are some of the issues that we write about and that we're passionate about with helping leaders.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you as you're looking at the broader landscape. Is there one, one type that you think this, this type, is where a lot of pastors are. Let me ask you this frame what type of pastors are Thriving right now in your experience? Is there a type? Maybe not, because we all have gifts and gaps, and what? What type are really struggling right now, and you can use this as a tool to just help us get into the the nine types a little bit more to you.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I mean that's such a great question. I think that the pastors and shepherds and people who are flourishing. It's not really about the type, it's about whether or not they are healthy and Christ-like within their type. So there are.
Speaker 3:Part of the power of the anagram is that you can look at sort of the levels of self-awareness, differentiation, experience and trust in God's love, your willingness to be emotionally honest, to be humble, and it's as we can get language for our personality type, the struggles of that type and the strengths of that type, and as we can see how we react. To stress. The anagram gives us language for that because every number relates to the other numbers around the clock face of the nine types. And when you get to know that you're not just the one personality type, the anagram is not a boxy theory. We all have a type and a wing. We have a stress line to another type, we have a growth line to another type. So we're all really a combination of, especially like about four types, three, four, five types, that with one home core type, and so learning that language tells you so much about your marriage and the people you're relating to in your small group and how you're approaching situations, opportunities and stress in your work. And so when we can get that language, then we have choices, because the thing is that when many aspects of my personality are unconscious to me, that's where it's a danger.
Speaker 3:David prays in Psalm 139, search me, oh God, and know me, test me, know if there's any anxious thoughts in me, see if there's any offensive way in me. That's the end of the Psalm, verses 23 and 24. And in the wisdom of the perfection of God and the knowledge of the Holy Spirit, david is communicating to us that, in this case, anxiety and sin. Well, they're not the same thing, they're connected. Anxiety can lead to sin and sin can lead to anxiety.
Speaker 3:So that self-awareness under the inspiration of the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, is at work within all of us who are followers of Jesus and is bringing the truth into consciousness.
Speaker 3:And so the primary tool for that, of course, is the Bible, god's Word, the body of Christ, relationships. But a personality tool like the Enneagram comes in there to be helpful. And so that's really, whatever our personality type, we need to become more aware, because once what was unconscious, whether it's a sin, an emotion, an attitude, a need, a memory, a stress point, a gift, a value, whatever, something that was unconscious in us becomes conscious. Now we have the freedom of choice. We can pray about that, we can talk with a safe person about that, we can integrate that into our discipleship to Jesus. So so much of what we're doing in healthy feelings, thriving faith, is helping you, the reader, put words to stuff that previously you weren't aware of and you couldn't describe. But once you have the language, you can develop the fruit of the Holy Spirit of self-control, so that we're not reacting to unconscious emotion or unconscious unmet needs in ways that are unloving.
Speaker 4:One of the other ways this tool is so helpful for leaders to be healthy is that it can be misused. There's a right use and a wrong use of the tool, because it's very powerful. One of the misuses would be to use it for judgment or the opposite, use it just to celebrate strengths, and those would both be errors, because to just celebrate the strengths, you miss the power of it as a tool for repentance and growth and Christlikeness. But to just use it as judging others is also very destructive. So we write in Healthy, feeling, thriving Faith about this is a wonderful tool for actually obeying Jesus' command to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
Speaker 4:So in each chapter about each type, we really focus on Jesus as the perfection of that type. That helps us to love him. As you come to understand this, you can't help but grow and worship for God. And then it also, as we come to understand these types, it enables us to love our neighbor better, because we can have greater empathy and understanding for them and why they are the way they are and why they struggle the way they do and why they behave in these ways that are so offensive or painful or hurtful when they're depending upon themselves to try to manage their emotions or to secure themselves in life instead of that secure attachment to Jesus. And then the other thing is it helps us to agree with God's grace and receive his love for ourselves as we come to understand ourselves and we come to see the ways that we have this unconscious sin that we're trying to make up for on our own in ways that this is actually cutting us off from our attachment to Jesus.
Speaker 2:I love not using the type against your loved ones.
Speaker 2:I told you my wife Alexa, as a peacemaker, and one time we were entering into a difficult conversation and I said I said you're such a peacemaker and it was not in a kind way and I saw immediately in her eyes that I had heard her said I'm a wretch man, I am so sorry for bringing that against you and I need your soft side for me, because I can be soft in front of a microphone but behind the scenes there's a shadow side that's a little more gruff or terse, and I'm good with words and my words can really hurt.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, thank you, thank you for bringing that to bear. How would you speak Empathetically to me as a three? I'm not looking for counseling, necessarily, you know, but you, we've know each other a little bit and I have a bigger persona. You know, I'm a larger guy. I've been an actor, like my whole life, if you will, is from stage microphone to stage, to to microphone, and so how would you speak and then even draw out a little bit of the, the wings for me, my gifts and gaps, and be, be gentle, be gentle, I know you will be, I'm just being silly.
Speaker 4:Well, one of the things, Tim, that I would say is, while you are so talented and so Eager and earnest to do all you can for the Lord and to lead well, that I have empathy for you because sometimes you're missing in all that achievement and performance that you get, it keeps you from really receiving that unconditional love that you really really long for. And in all the outward achievement performing is so well done and really done because in earnest, because you do love God. It's also hard because underneath you feel some inadequacy that people don't realize that the praise that you get from people is A temptation for you to form your identity around what other people think of you and that can distort your true identity in Christ and your belovedness in him.
Speaker 3:We have so many people that we care for In soul shepherding who are any gram threes? Lots of pastors and leaders are threes. One of my best friends is any gram three. When I was first learning the any gram 20 years ago I wanted to be a three. Now, if you're actually a three, you know that's a good test. You're probably. I'm probably not a three if I want to be a three because when you really learn your type is like oh, you see the, the gunk in there, you see that, the crud, you see the sin.
Speaker 3:It's like nobody, nobody really wants to be their type, but the threes we have a huge heart for the threes. They're the very center of the heart triad and so, yeah, the ironic thing probably you might relate to, tim, that threes we talked to relate to is that in the center of the heart triad threes are very tuned in to the emotions, the needs of other people, but tend to not be so much in tune with our own emotions because of that mechanism of denial We've been talking about that. We deny our core personality stuff and so when threes wake up to Emotions and being healthy in that is you've been doing for some years now in your journey. Wow, it's an incredible thing because when you, when you tap into that, that emotional intelligence so that's the intelligence center for the heart types is emotional, relational Intelligence, and that's huge in leadership and ministry when because emotional intelligence is highly predictive of success, not only like material or Work success, but in the best sense of the word, fruitfulness and loving relationships and teaming and collaborating with people and all that kind of thing.
Speaker 3:So we teach for all of the nine types, we have an emotional alarm. That is a wake-up call. And this is where, when we are beginning to slide down into an unhealthy region of our personality, reacting out of some unconscious, denied emotion or sin, that kind of thing, this is a wake-up call. So for the threes is conditions of worth, when and any of us might relate to this, but for the three is especially Central that there is this pressure, this expectation that I need to measure up to these conditions, to these expectations, in order to be worthwhile. And so when you can Get that wake-up call before you slid all the way down into being controlled by shame, it really helps you be more healthy. And so what you do with that then is that there's a key soul care practice that we identify for each of the nine types. These are spiritual disciplines, and and all the spiritual disciplines are good for all of us. But we found is that there's one that is especially Primary for each of the types, and so for the three it's.
Speaker 3:It's a lot of we've been talking about, but it's emotional honesty, because that's a hard thing for threes their their virtue to grow in is authenticity. So three said this tremendous potential to be incredibly authentic, but they have to have the redemption of Christ at work in their life, because their, their core sin is that Hiding behind this, this image that, as a kind of deceit, the performer, the achiever and being so good at playing to the crowd and Winning people over which is some things about that are great, but then when there's a deceit in there and there's those conditions of worth in order to be accepted, this is who I need to be, and so you're not being your true self. That's where it's a big problem. And so for threes to get into this place, place of authenticity and genuineness, that's the path to Christlikeness.
Speaker 2:So that can look like I receive that go ahead Good.
Speaker 4:That can look like a safe place for you to be able to be Emotionally honest, to be able to be with people who don't need you to perform for them or achieve for them. People who can empathize with the heavy responsibility that comes with how hard you work, and People that can support you for and love you for who you are, and then also encouraging you to Understand Jesus's empathy for you. Jesus worked hard. He was not lazy. He was someone who had a lot of desire to Make a big impact in his ministry and even before his ministry he worked really hard as a carpenter and caring for his younger siblings. This is probably the head of the household after Joseph died, and being able to see Jesus understands what it's like to be tired From working so hard or carrying heavy responsibilities, having people look to you with high expectations.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, thank you, and I love in the book how Every chapter with every type, finishes with this word of grace from Jesus, this word of empathy and care. Yeah, my, my team knows here that I'm, that I'm a three, and one of the reasons you draw out is I read a lot of books and Then I have to share it and I integrate it, you know, in a healthy way. But but there's a part of me. I got to write a blog. I gotta say something. I gotta like integrate that. You know it's, it's a lot, I'm a lot and praise Jesus for his, his grace and for a diverse. I get the privilege of working on a very diverse team With a lot, a lot of gifted people on all, on the, on the whole spectrum. There. I've all different types, maybe closing question here this has been so, so life-giving.
Speaker 2:I've heard some, even psychologists, talk about the, the role of empathy, and I'm gonna ask this question Using a family systems framework. That's. That's a framework that I've been integrated. I I studied with Pete Stanky I don't know if you know him, he's now with the Lord. He did a lot of healthy churches, healthy congregations, healthy leaders, that that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:Using that the healthy systems, a family systems, approach so differentiated. I know who I am in Jesus and yet connected in community. And the key in living a differentiated and connected life is the piece of the piece of Jesus, right, the piece that passes all understanding. But sometimes, as we talk with empathy, you can get to what some psychologists say is fused to the anxiety of others. I want to be God for them and empathy I think what I've heard, the best understanding of empathy I want to step into your skin, I want to see through your eyes, but then I almost immediately then want to jump back into being me to release you to Jesus. So any, any response to this, some psychologists to say I don't know. We should be a little cautious with using the term empathy too much, especially in this day and age.
Speaker 3:Well, some of that's language, when, if empathy is coming across as sympathy or reassurance or coddling or caretaking, where we're not letting a person be responsible for their own self, that's not true empathy, it's certainly not healthy loving empathy, because empathy always helps somebody to take responsibility. All teaches us in Galatians 6 to carry each other's burdens out of love the Christ, love for us and through us to other people. But then he says, because each one needs to carry their own load. So we need that integration, like you said, of the differentiation that I'm a different person with my own responsibilities and needs, but then also the connection, the attunement, the care for others. So we need to integrate those, and empathy is a matter of joining in by listening, listening prayerfully, having a warm, tender heart to care for what somebody is experiencing, including their emotions, as we've been talking about, but then also to be able to step back and have some objectivity. So a really good listener, and this is something that we teach in our Soul Shepherding Institute retreats and we have a certificate program in spiritual directions, a two-year online program, so somebody can earn a certificate for spiritual direction where they want to do that in a private practice, like coaching or counselors do, or they want to integrate that into their relationships, their work, their ministry, perhaps in the church, and so spiritual direction, the way we teach it is fundamentally rooted in healthy empathy. And so when you talk to somebody who is a trained spiritual director, who is really good at that, they are able to ask you questions, to listen, to put words to what you're feeling and they are soft-hearted, they really join with you. But there are microseconds there while they're listening. Well, they're able to be objective and they're able to think about something like, well, what's this person's enneagram type? And then have some thoughts about how that would guide them.
Speaker 3:In this conversation, or back to our previous interview with you, tim, on our other book, journey of the Soul, our spiritual directors are trained to ask well, what Christ stage of faith is this person in? And the discipleship journey, with these six stages of faith in the acronym C-H-R-I-S-T which stage is somebody in? Because we all have a home stage and we go back and forth, and so that's another model that we can use in discipleship to understand people and where they are. And so, yeah, somebody who's really good with empathy. And this relates to marriage, to leading a small group, to friendship conversations everything in life goes better with empathy and actually nothing goes very well without empathy.
Speaker 3:I mean, if you're talking to your car mechanic who's great at mechanics but has no empathy for you, you're probably not going to go back. We want to be understood with what we feel and what we need. And if you're talking to a coach who's got great knowledge and insight to give you, it's really going to help you in your business or your leadership or your life, but that coach is not great at listening and tuning into what you really need and what's hurting and what you're hoping for, you're probably not going to go back and talk to that coach. And so you know, disneyland knows this and all the marketers know this, and so they appeal to our emotions. In many ways we live in our emotions and if we don't accept that, then what's going to happen is those emotions are going to go unconscious and then we're going to be reacting to emotions in ways that are unloving and foolish.
Speaker 3:So healthy empathy it's rooted in compassion. So some people say well, gee, the word empathy is in the Bible. Why are you making such a big deal about it? Well, the word compassion is everywhere. Empathy is a newer word. It comes from modern psychotherapy and so compassion for compassion to be truly compassionate meaning it's really helpful to someone it's got to be initiated with empathy, because empathy asks the question what does this person really need? And if I rush out with compassion without having done the work of empathy, then I might be given somebody a handout when they really need a hand up and I'm not helping them be responsible. I'm not considering their dignity, I'm just considering my own need to feel good by offering this help. So empathy is fundamental to love. I'm a little passionate about this.
Speaker 4:And so I think sometimes we are afraid of empathy because it highlights, in order to receive empathy we have to be vulnerable and we often are shutting down for that. And then also we avoid empathy because we don't want to feel other people's pain, we don't want to co-suffer with them, we want to shield ourselves from their needs and their emotions, and so those things sometimes can cause us to be against empathy and really misunderstand it. And really we empathize because Jesus first empathize with us. Empathy is also very much embedded in love. We hear in our culture I don't care what you know if I don't know that you care.
Speaker 4:And ability to be able to care is based on empathy really knowing what is the need and do I understand it. And it's a form of curiosity to really learn about each other and then being able to validate what somebody else's experience is. But it's not to keep them stuck in where they are. It's actually when somebody empathizes with us, it releases us from shame. There's been a lot of research on this of how when somebody does not understand us, the shame centers in our brain light up and we feel shame and we will go into hiding. But when somebody empathizes with us, it frees us from shame and it energizes us and it enables us to get back to that point where we're going to take responsibility and we can't receive God's grace without empathy, because receiving and agreeing with His grace involves also receiving and agreeing with His empathy.
Speaker 2:Yes, isn't Jesus so kind, he's so compassionate. One of the first Greek words I learned, the splidzomai, is the Greek word for compassion. Right, this rendering of the gut Jesus. He looked at them like sheep without a shepherd and he said let me be the good shepherd for you to know all parts of you. Know yourself better than you know yourself, and yet I draw near to you. John 1,. The word became flesh and dwelt, tabernacled among us and by the Spirit's power, through faith and making us His temple. And so the kindness of Jesus is just overwhelming. The gospel of Jesus is overwhelmingly good for us and is the light and the joy and the love that the world needs, now more than ever, in this chaotic, dark, dark world that we, as lightbearers baptized in the name of Jesus, would bring that kindness, that compassion, that empathy into a world and point them to the source of it, which is Christ. This has been so much fun, bill and Kristi. Any final thoughts as we end our conversation today? So grateful for you.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, I'm thinking as I'm listening to you, tim, and I was thinking this earlier in our conversation how it's the kindness of the Lord that leads us to repentance and that's God's preferred way of dealing with us. Of course, god is a God of justice and God will, in different ways, speak truth and confront, and even with a righteous anger when needed. We see that in Jesus. But God's preferred way is with tenderness and gentleness, the kinds of things that we've been talking about, with empathy, with a soft heart, and so to see Jesus entering into my personality type through stories in the Gospels, all nine types that we introduce in Healthy Feelings, thriving Face, we show you Jesus how he enters into your type and he shows you how God, in perfect love, comes to you and that Jesus understands the human Jesus.
Speaker 3:Sometimes, as Christians, if we don't keep the divinity and the humanity of Jesus integrated, and so sometimes we may be overemphasized the divinity of the Son of God, meaning we're under-emphasized his humanity, and that he really did take on limitations, paul teaches in Philippians, for instance, in Hebrews it's all over the Scripture, and so Jesus is not in the Gospels walking around like Einstein doing first grade math or Picasso pretending to learn art. I mean, jesus is a human being. He has to learn and grow and wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. Luke tells us. And so in his humanity, jesus feels all the things that we feel. Hebrews tells us.
Speaker 3:He experiences all the temptations that we experience, and so the humility of God in Jesus is so beautiful and so captivating, and it gives me so much empathy and grace to see that as an Enneagram, I, where I'm struggling with maybe trying too hard or being perfectionistic, I can see that Jesus had that temptation and he had all the challenges of speaking truth and bringing the sermon out of the mount, and yet he learned how to do it with humor and with graciousness, not a stick in the mud like an Enneagram I can be, and so just to see Jesus in my type is so refreshing for me. And that's what we want for everyone listening is we want you to meet Jesus afresh and anew and be enthralled with the Son of God, who's the ratings of God's glory, and see how he is entered into your personality, to love you right where you are and bring you into God's presence and help you live a life of love, the life you're designed to live, amen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is so much fun. Hey, Christy, if people want to connect with you and Bill and get your book, how can we best do so? Amazon, other places and your website would be wonderful.
Speaker 4:Yes, the book's available anywhere. Books are sold and then you can connect with us at our website, wwwsoulshepardingorg, and, if you want more information about the Enneagram, soulshepardingorg slash Enneagram where you could connect with books, podcasts, an assessment on Enneagram, emotions, also a video course we've done on Enneagram and Emotions, as well as all of our resources for caring for pastors, being healthy in our relationship with Jesus, growing in intimacy with Jesus and greater health in our leadership. We would also invite you and love to have you consider coming away on retreat with us Soulsheparding Institute. We have several of those that we're leading this year and we have those all around the country of people participate from around the world via Zoom also, so just to be able to learn and grow in a safe community, a safe place, and get some structure being led in some time of solitude and silence to really open your soul to hear from Jesus directly. It's a great grace and we'd love to have you join us.
Speaker 3:Retreats are for all kinds of people, all kinds of shepherds and servants, and for those of you who are church pastors we do some special connecting of you with other pastors and spiritual director. That really gets who is a pastor and gets pastors.
Speaker 2:So good, I want to go, I want to go.
Speaker 2:This book is Healthy Feelings Thriving Faith. It's top 10,000 out of 33 million books on Amazon. Congratulations on that, and you should pick it up. It will bless your journey with Jesus. This is the American Reformation Podcast. Sharing is caring like, subscribe, comment wherever it is you take in podcasts, and we are committed as a podcast of the United Leadership Collective to have amazing guests like Bill and Christie moving forward, who are lifelong learners, who are loved by the Lord. Thank you for bringing the love and light of Christ into the world, bill and Christie. This was so much fun. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Tim. Thank you for all of you listening and following along.
Speaker 4:Bless you.