Our church has been rather obsessed with the enneagram lately (thanks Kalle). I just got back from the women’s retreat, and a lot of it incorporated the enneagram as a way to understand each other. It also helps us to understand how different people relate to God. Of course, there is a range within each enneagram number, and each individual has a unique makeup of each number, but there are some general truths that can apply to each number. Since Bobby wrote about his “twoness”, I thought I would write about my “fourness”.

On Easter Sunday, we looked at a reminder from Ephesian 2:5, that God has made us alive in Christ and what that means for life after the resurrection.

Paul continues his emphatic message to the church in Ephesus, not to guilt and shame, but instead to remind the believers of their true identity as Christians. Repentance is coming in to reality and rejecting falsehood; believing our identity is truly and only in Christ.

Let go of the "try harder" mentality - that isn't what Christ taught us. Instead may we turn and believe God in our minds and hearts that we are exactly who He says we are. Until we do that, we're in danger of living in denial of our new and true identity.

“What Jericho roads do you walk, but choose not to repave?” 

It was a piercing question, no doubt. But the beauty of it is that it makes you stop and think. It demands a response. It may even result in a next step.

Last week we talked about the unity of the church. This week we will look at the diversity of the gifts, that when working in unison, create a healthy and thriving community.
 

God is asking us to pursue worthy living according to His word. Both who we are in character, and what we do in action make up the worthy life of God.

Check out our Sermon Summary on Showing God Through Church Unity.

I’m not sure if you’re aware, but there is a personality test called the enneagram. It is a personality test and is unique in a couple of ways: it quantifies your personality into a number and it tells you how you relate to yourself and other people. The numbers range from 1-9; however, I’m going to focus on number 2. Where the enneagram is concerned, twos are “The Helper” and  yours truly is an enneagram 2. To give you a general concept of enneagram 2, here is an excerpt of the description:

The power of God, in the presence of the Holy Spirit, is an indicator of spiritual maturity.  So if we are to harness and deploy this power, what would that look like?
 

Whether you have followed Jesus for many years, or are just considering what it means to be a Christ follower, the gospel frees us and gives us power to step forward in faith.

About this time last year, Shawn shared a simple practice that he uses to remind himself over the course of a week or month to pray for or check in on people with whom he wants to be intentional. He simply sets a reminder on his phone to recur every few days or weeks, and is therefore periodically reminded of that person and their prayer request, and is pushed to pray for them. He challenged us to adopt this same practice if there was something that we need to be reminded about...