Perhaps you grew up in a time when anything that was foreign to our local church practices was either ‘of the devil’ or as generally defined, “New Age.” Pastor John recalls that this was the moniker that someone in his childhood church even placed on the Apostle’s Creed. He remembers someone saying that because it was used in certain traditions it was not something we should mess with.

Well, we have come a long way in understanding that we must remain vigilant to not automatically understand human ideas as God’s ideas, but that in doing so, we must at the same time be careful to grow our library of experiences and understandings of God by discerningly pursuing God’s ideas that have taken many different shapes in the lives of countless believers across global church traditions and throughout Christian history.

One of those that Pastor John and Pastor Andie wish to introduce to you is that of the Enneagram. Now before you panic and think we are about to teach you a Hindu or Sofi philosophy, or that the ornate Enneagram image looks like a pentagram (don’t worry- it looks no more like one than Pastor John looks like Tom Cruise. ;) Instead we recognize the Enneagram as a historic tool that many Christians have used, and we believe that the Lord is using it in a resurgence of modern spiritual formation helping to mature believers as we are all seeking to find out our identity in Christ and how our identity helps us relate to others amid our own struggles, joys and patterns of behavior.

To assist us in better understanding the Enneagram, Pastor Eddy Frost, Pastor of our Manchester (NH) Christ The Way Church of the Nazarene, and a leading hospital chaplain and chaplaincy trainer, will be with us for two Wednesday night “Spiritual Formation” sessions on October 9th and October 23rd, from 6:30pm-7:30pm each of those nights. There will be no charge for these sessions, though a love offering will be taken and opportunities for purchasing resources will be made. Please feel free to invite friends and come prayerfully open to discern whether or not this might be a help to you on your spiritual journey.