"Better Watch Out!" was the first line of a text I got from an Intowner this week. There wasn't a smiley-face emoji attached, but knowing the sender, I inserted one in my mind.

This person had stumbled upon a blog of one of Christendom's self-appointed gatekeepers, who was giving us all a warning about the growing use of the Enneagram in church. This sort of denouncement theology is common in certain wings of the Evangelical church and its in/out gamesmanship still appeals to a large enough set of traditional churchgoers that blogs like this get lots of readers who are eager to be told what to be fearful of next.

So, I'm not worried about getting sideways with this blog writer's version of orthodoxy, but as a 5 with a strong 4 wing, I was disappointed to learn that other churches were doing series about the Enneagram and that I wasn't Mr. Special.

See, the 4 part in me fears being boring or unoriginal, so had I known that there were enough churches studying the Enneagram for someone to write a blog post about it I would never have done this series! ("The Enneagram is so played!" thought balloon.)

Yet, without the Enneagram I'm not sure I would have noticed this quirky liability. Reflecting on the Enneagram again has enabled me to see how the desire for uniqueness––which is a spark for so much beauty in the world––also has a darker side: a faulty assumption that God himself prefers that which is new and novel over that which is common and conventional.

The text I received this week stuck out to me for another reason, "better watch out" is one of the operating principles for an Enneagram 6, which we are talking about tomorrow. 6's are really good at disaster preparedness because "you never know." We're looking at some selections from Jeremiah and James to help us live into an uncertain future without debilitating fear.