We use labels to shut people up and shut conversation down, but the enneagram should do the opposite. The enneagram should start conversations, not end them.
What Enneagram Type Was Jesus?
Author: Tanya Marlow
Approaching Mystery: Solve, Label or Wow
Solve When I was nine, I wanted to be a detective. With my official children’s guide, I researched invisible ink, tracks and Clues. I was confident that as soon as I actually encountered a mystery I would solve it. As a nine-year-old, I was deeply disappointed that there weren’t children being kidnapped so I could […]
Cure vs. Healing
I always thought Cure and Healing were synonymous, but I’m learning to redefine them. It’s like this: I used to enjoy going to the doctor. There was a big, old-fashioned rocking horse in the waiting room, which you could take a turn on. My mother pointed at my throat, the doctor put a lolly stick […]
Finding God in Fairytales
As a child, I blurred the lines between fiction and reality. After reading twenty of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books, I imagined that every step in the garden was part of a Great Adventure, and looked for clues for treasure everywhere: in twigs and castles. I fell in love with novels, which is to say, […]
What Enneagram Type Was Jesus?
If you’ve been around the Christian blogosphere circles for the past five years, you will know that the hottest test of the moment is something known as the Enneagram. Everyone’s talking about it, finding their type, using it as an explanation for their behaviour, and guessing other people’s types. I’m a huge fan of personality […]
Strange Comfort in Dark Times
When the world is bleak, where can comfort be found? Last week, after the US election results came in, even the mood here in the UK was sombre. While many rejoiced that Donald Trump was elected, my Facebook thread was full of people genuinely fearing for their life, home or livelihoods. Whether it was because […]
Dreaming Big, Living Small
I am a dreamer, and I dream big. I’ve always wanted to live a dramatic story, to Do Something Big For God! Make an impact! Change the World! Build the Kingdom!!! – and other slogans that require multiple exclamation marks at the end. So many are writing these days about the finding joy in the […]
The Curious Blessing of Rejection
Ten years ago, in 2006, I was rejected by a publisher. It went like this: after four years of student ministry and thinking about a post-modern culture, I had an idea for a book that explored characteristics of student ministry in the context of postmodernism – a sort of analytical, practical, theological-yet-readable sort of book. […]
How to Discover Your Calling
By the age of 21, I knew my calling in life. My fiancé and I wrote it on a piece of paper before we got married as a declaration: ‘whatever it takes for both of us to be in full-time Christian ministry.’ I loved teaching the Bible, helping people on the fringes of faith work […]
The God Who Waits
Advent is a season of waiting: for calendar chocolates, promised presents, Santa’s steps. Advent is a season of longing: for life, and light, and hope beyond this world. In Advent, we think we are the ones who are waiting. But I think of the annunciation, in Leonardo Da Vinci’s Italian colours: […]
Joy in a Minor Key
The holiday season is almost upon us, like a sweaty dog. The Christmas lights and jingly songs blare their good cheer into the darkness, but they don’t seem to penetrate it. This year, we will decorate the tree together as a family, and I will try and snap pictures of my little boy looking angelic […]
Quit While You Still Love It
A number of my friends are facing a crossroads at the moment asking the same immortal question as The Clash did in 1982: Should I stay or should I go? The pattern, I observe, goes something like this:Move to a new placeSettle into new placeEnjoy the new placeRESTLESSNESS. When I first became a Christian minister […]
The Day I Went to a Faith Healer
I was fifteen, and I remember that the auditorium was huge, and we were up in the balcony. From that height the speaker looked tiny, but his voice was huge and blaring, and each word was shouted. Already there was something in my spirit that didn’t feel right, but when I looked at the […]
Does the Internet Reveal the True You?
What’s the best way of getting to know someone—their blog and social media presence, or in person? Where do you most reveal your true self—in person, or online? I’m guessing most people would say unhesitatingly, ‘in person.’ But before you confidently plump for that option, consider Jane Austen. In Pride and […]
Love is in a Midnight-Blue Towel
They lie next to each other, on our bathroom rail, one grass-green, one midnight blue. They are the same Egyptian cotton towels we were given for our wedding, fifteen years ago. At the time, as I recall, I thought them outrageously expensive, yet they are still here, fifteen years on. Every day, I take […]
When You Feel Like You’re Losing Your Faith
It starts with an itch, the slightest feeling of discomfort. You sit at the back of the church and ignore the questions hovering in your mind. You sing the words of the hymn extra loudly, looking at the faces around you who all seem to be rapt in wonder. You think about the word, ‘rapt’, […]