What’s Your Type? | Tyler Zach | Episode 24

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hi, this is Grant Lockridge and Jared Tafta on the Across the Counter podcast, where we create space for real people to have honest conversations. Today we have Tyler Zock. Like Bach, I called him Zack and it's Zock if you look at the spelling. Very good. So, Tyler, just tell me where you're from. Tell me a little bit about where you're from.

Speaker 2: 0:27

Yeah, do you want the one minute version? Five minute version, ten minute version.

Speaker 1: 0:31

I want the Tyler Zock version. What's the?

Speaker 3: 0:34

most entertaining version. Okay, okay.

Speaker 2: 0:38

I can do that. It all started in the cornfields of Nebraska. I grew up in rural Nebraska in a small town with no stop lights and grew up Catholic. It was an all Catholic town. We eventually left the Catholic church which we got some hate mail for. That Makes sense. I like Catholics but I'm just saying when you're that's your norm and you go against the norm, it causes some gossip and controversy in the town. That would be for anybody. But yeah, I was a bit of an achiever, tried to stay busy and the football wrestling track. Growing up my mom was my own junior high English teacher so that was a little awkward when she called me Ty Honey one time in class. But yeah, just stayed busy in a small town there's not much to do. And then came to Omaha here, which is a very diverse, probably about a million people around it. So it's not like what people think of Nebraska. It's very, got a big music scene, it's very urban, and thought I'd get a computer degree and so pursuing that love technology. And then had a detour. I was in a fraternity. I was like a fraternity president and living up the whole frat life. And then I had a spiritual awakening in college through a campus ministry and got mentored and that kind of sent me on another trajectory. I didn't graduate with a computer degree. I ended up getting into campus ministry and really wanted to impact the lives of fraternity and sorority students people who are very far from God, just because I had a lot of compassion for people and they did not want to go to church at all, so I just spent a lot of time wanting to mentor them. So I did that for about nine years and then met my wife through a campus ministry and then we got married. We went through a really rough patch after the first three years of marriage because we want my wife. All she ever wanted to do is have kids and we were unable to have kids and so found out that we were going to be dealing with infertility and so that was a huge, a huge part of our story. And then we ended up adopting after that, after we couldn't get pregnant and tried for years, so we adopted a son here in Omaha Zane, so he's now 11 years old, going on 12. And then we have a younger son who's nine, who we adopted as well, and we got him in Kansas. So after the campus ministry sent me down and I worked at K-State for a few years leading the campus ministry there, and so that's where we adopted our second son and both sons are biracial and so that's a big part of our story Comes back later. And we came back to Nebraska because we got invited into church planting and so I became a pastor. Never thought I'd be a pastor, never thought I fit the typical mold of being a pastor. I'm a mute. I was a music DJ for many years and you love pop music and it just didn't seem like I would be the great, a great pastor. Campus ministry, yes, because I could hang with the college students and be funny and awkward and be silly. But then I got invited in by my friends to be a pastor and so I did. And then a year into that, they asked me to plant a church. Like start a church from scratch and take 130 people from there growing now megachurch to go start a church in a very artsy, progressive, diverse part of Omaha and very politically diverse, racially diverse and every way. And so we did that about eight years ago and loved it, planted the church, it started growing and then, right before COVID hit, we actually merged with the multi ethnic church. So I started co-leading with a black pastor and we brought our congregations together, which was a beautiful thing and just a dream for me, because I had two biracial sons. Both are half black, half white, and so to raise them in a congregation where there's Latinos and blacks and Asians all coming together to worship together man, what a powerful experience. And then, excuse me, and then COVID hit, and then all these injustices started happening around the country and it was wild going through that experience now with people of color in my life and hearing how these experiences were happening through their eyes, and so it changed me. Those relationships and friendships changed my a lot of my perspective on life, on politics, on so many issues, and so I'll be forever changed because of that experience. And then, most recently, I left full time ministry back in January, because being a pastor, being in full time ministry, is a really hard thing for your family if you're not good at balancing life and work, because life can be consumed by ministry. And our youngest son got diagnosed as being on the spectrum some years ago, and so Lindsay was never able to fully be present on Sundays, so she had to take care of the boys, get them ready to come to church. I'm always working on the weekends. I'm writing sermons. It was just been a really hard decade for my family. So as I was turning 40 last year, I said you know what? I want this next decade to be much different than the past decade for my family, and I know I'm going to regret it if I don't make a big change. So I transitioned out of full time ministry the guy I was co-leading with. Now he's a full time solo lead pastor. He's killing it, he's doing great. And now I can tutor in homeschool our son on the spectrum two days a week and then Lindsay can get out of the house, she can substitute, teach and she can have more balance rather than feeling stuck and isolated at home. And so this year I'm doing Enneagram, coaching, writing books full time, doing a lot of fun, creative things. So I'm loving it and Lindsay's loving it and just been a really good year for our family. So that's. I put a lot of handles there that you guys can double click if you want to talk about anything else.

Speaker 1: 7:23

I got a couple of things I want to double click for sure. First, the idea of being a pastor and it being hard for your family. That just sounds like a lot of stuff we've heard before of just ministry being super hard on your family and that sort of thing. But we've also heard like the flip side of that coin too, of like I was like brought families together and stuff like that One I was just curious about what kind of like how hard was that decision to step away from a growing church that you were pastoring? That was really cool and I'm sure you saw a bunch of lives being changed Like how'd you make that decision? Because that sounds like a really tough one to make.

Speaker 2: 8:08

Yeah, that's a great question. I've always felt disloyal, like disloyal, when I transition from one thing to another. When I was asked to leave K States campus ministry to come to Omaha, I felt disloyal, yeah, like I was bailing on them and had to really wrestle through that in order to come, and it really had to get over myself and realize that God will continue to raise up people behind you Like you're. All of us are dispensable. None of us are indispensable to a ministry or place. We're just, we're using our gifts and God's using us in that season. But all of us are replaceable. And I mean that like a good way. And so I realized, no, I can transition on, I can move back to Omaha, which was actually a really good thing, good timing, because my wife's mother, her breast cancer, came back and it got it. It turned into brain cancer and so we were able to be here in Omaha for her, you know, final year of life, and so that was really helpful for my wife. But making that transition was very difficult because it felt like I was being disloyal to my church family. But it helped because I was co-leading with a really strong leader and I knew that he would be okay, and I've lived enough life now that I'm like I know that ministries come and go and churches come and go, but your family will never go, go anywhere. I'll be with Lindsay when we're 70, 80 years old, holding your hand, and so it's. Who am I going to be more faithful to? Am I going to be more faithful to the church that has a season of my life, or faithful to my bride, who I'm going to be with forever? And so that helps. And I had some friends that helped me to just continue to work that truth into my heart, and so that made it easier to make the decision of okay, now I don't just have a year of a year to look back on, I have a decade to look back on, and I don't want the next decade to look like this past decade. So some of those things helped, if that makes sense.

Speaker 3: 10:22

So this is a hard question on the back of that. But you said do I want to be more faithful to the church or my bride? And we've dealt with a lot of the idea of imbalance in Christian homes and in pastors households and maybe your family being sacrificed on the altar of ministry Would you say that a person who is not moving at the delight of their bride can be a faithful pastor of the church?

Speaker 2: 10:57

Can you say that? Can you rephrase that again?

Speaker 3: 11:00

Yeah, do you think a pastor who is sacrificing his family or marriage on that altar of ministry is truly being faithful to pastor the church?

Speaker 2: 11:14

Yeah, I hear what you're saying. No, I think God wants you to be faithful to your family and to the church, but your family are your most important disciples, the most important relationships. So I don't think God would ask you to sacrifice your most important disciples and most important relationships for the church. And again, if you are, it means you have too high of an opinion of yourself or you think that you're too indispensable, that God can't use anybody else in the church. I'm just convincing out this point that, okay, this is a sidebar, but I have changed my perspective on women in ministry. I've changed my perspective on just a lot of social justice issues related to my relationships with my dear brothers and sisters of color, and I feel like we need diverse perspectives. We need different, all kinds of different kinds of people teaching and leading in the church, because so many of our churches are led by one person or a few people, and so their voice, their personality, shapes everything and in a lot of cases, the locus of power comes down to a few people. It's not spread out, and that's, I think that's unhealthy. And so I think, if a church is functioning, because if you look back at the apostle Paul, he never assigned a lead pastor to a church In the first century church planning. He's always raising up teams, he's raising up elders to go and lead churches. It was very balanced and he said, hey, when you show up together, because again they're showing up in homes. And when they're showing up in homes, he's hey, and somebody bring a hymn, somebody bring a word, somebody bring a teaching, he's bring your gifts and we'll all be edified together. It was the way we do church now is not the way they did church in the first century, and I don't mean that negatively. I'm just trying to help people to re-visualize that these house churches were not led by one person, but oftentimes now churches get reliant on one person and when that one leader thinks that they're indispensable, then they think okay, I got to preach 80, 90% of the time I have to do X, y and Z and they stretch themselves too thin because they think they're more important than they actually are to the mission. When, if you can have a more humble approach and see, I'm one of many leaders here and we need to hear from a lot of different perspectives men, women, yeah, all those things then they can actually scale back and spend more time with their family and not sacrifice them on the altar.

Speaker 3: 14:15

There's just one follow up and then we can get off of the subject. But it's interesting to me that you mentioned the idea of women being involved in church and all people, and there seems to be this juxtaposition of pastors wives feeling neglected and then women also being neglected with a voice inside of the church. There's equal weights and measures being left out, I guess. So when you also use Paul, that's a lot of the argument sometimes against women being in church or being silent or still, and this podcast is not one that's argumentative in nature, but would you share a bit of how your perspectives have shifted over to the years or how they've changed in women being a helper but also being an equal, valuable part of the congregation?

Speaker 2: 15:10

Yeah, so I was heavily in the Reformed camp. So I grew up Catholic and then went to a megachurch in college that was evangelical megachurch and then got involved in an Axe 29 church plant that was heavily influenced by Mars Hill you guys might be familiar with the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast and so that's the kind of culture I was racing for about 10 years after college and it was heavily preached to us to a very complementarian mindset where men are the only teachers and have the authority to lead a church, and so I operated out of that and actually wrote a 30-page position paper on being complementarian. I did a lot of research around this area. Right, it was an an 30 pages.

Speaker 1: 16:08

I don't know if I could write 30 full pages on that.

Speaker 2: 16:11

I was yes, and then now I want to write a book refuting everything I wrote in that. I want to call it equal, equal terri. What? How I was going to say it? Equal terri, a complementarian or egalitarian, but equal.

Speaker 3: 16:30

Equalitarian.

Speaker 2: 16:31

Equalitarian, equalitarian, equal. Yeah, I like the way you said it there Qualitarian, that's much better.

Speaker 1: 16:38

I think that's actually a word.

Speaker 3: 16:40

For real. Yeah, most of the ones I use are made up. Yeah, I think that one's real.

Speaker 1: 16:44

I'm not sure we had like a spelling issue before we got on this thing.

Speaker 3: 16:49

But he means Jared did yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:50

Jared, I had trouble spelling, so I knew how to spell it. But in Iagram I was like all right, I'm gonna. And I spelled it right. It was like okay, this word's pretty much made up. How do we spell this? Okay, which I guess all words are, but still it's pretty recent.

Speaker 2: 17:06

Yeah, but that's a tangent yeah, keep on going what you were going on. That's good, yeah, and Paul's words were the main thing, what you mentioned, because a lot of egalitarians would say, hey, jesus, talk to women, use women, paul, use Phoebe, and they would use cases like that. But I would always go back to Paul. Paul seems very clear here Men are not, or women are not, to have teaching authority over men. What in the world do we do with that?

Speaker 3: 17:37

Yeah, it's very. Direct.

Speaker 2: 17:40

It is very direct and so it took, and I think on both sides there's amazing godly people on both sides of this gender roles issue and both want to be faithful to the Lord. They want to be faithful. They just don't want to be led by the culture or any other thing other than the Bible. There's people on both sides that want to be faithful and they want to be faithful to their Bible. So I felt like I couldn't be faithful in having an alternative view because Paul seemed so clear. But as I went along and had different I had. Almost all the women of color in my church that had merged with our church were all coming from an egalitarian background when women were in leadership or women did play a big part of the church. That forced me to have conversations with people on the other side that were now sitting in church with me, and they were my friends, and relationships change everything, as we say. So I was having these conversations with them and so it forced me to go back to the drawing board. It forced me to go back to scripture and to revisit this whole issue again. So I started reading books more thoroughly, more with an open mind, trying my hardest but also feeling okay at any minute I might go on this slippery slope towards progressivism, liberalism and hell If I have a different view, because that's probably.

Speaker 3: 19:09

Yeah, if women are going to be in the pew and then teaching, then hell is the next step for sure I get excommunicated and be on a literal slippery slope.

Speaker 1: 19:21

I mean women brought us down to begin with that might not be something we should laugh at, but I'm freaking laughing. So there we go.

Speaker 2: 19:28

It's funny because it's true a little bit when we get into some of these churches that are unhealthy. I was a part of a gospel-centered church and we are a proclaimed gospel-centered church and when you think that you are actually at the center and that everybody is either left of you or right of you but you're perfectly in the middle, that can lead to spiritual pride and that can lead you to justify a lot of things. I talk about this in some of my Enneagram personality books, some of the more black and white personalities. I say that angry virtue shows up. It's not like you have virtue, but it turns into angry virtue. I am virtuous and I am angry because people are not living according to God's word. They're not doing this or that, and so I have a right to be angry and to take action in ways that are unrighteous. And you go back to the Doctrine of Discovery, which, as we are conquering Native Americans, the Pope actually signed a decree it's called the Doctrine of Discovery saying you can kill Native Americans because if they are not Christians, anybody that's not a Christian. You have my permission, the church's authority, to go and kill and a lot of people don't know that and that might be a little heavy, but that's an example of what Paul did, the Apostle Paul. When he thought that God was on his side, he was like, as a Jew, I am going to go and destroy the Christians, I'm going to go murder Stephen, the first martyr, Stephen, and I'm justified in doing it because God is on my side. And so, going back, I'm not saying that I was a crusader, but I am saying that I did feel like I was the most gospel centered and that our church because we helped to Paul's words and all these things like it justified looking down on people, if that makes sense. And I'm still healing from that spiritual pride to this day. So I'm still trying to get over that, but anyways, okay. So I read William Webb's book. William Webb offered a different hermeneutic. Okay, you can be faithful to God and have a different hermeneutic. Basically, that's just saying that over the centuries, God reapplies truth to different contexts to help people live as faithful Christians in their contexts. What if this gender roles thing is not a design issue, but it was Paul applying truth to his particular context? And I'll say this and we can transition on so this doesn't become a gender role, whatever we want to talk about. Yeah, I like it. But it's helpful because he lists like five different scriptures of Paul saying submit to authority, so that the word of God wouldn't be reviled Like submit to God's authority or submit to earthly authority for the sake of the gospel. And so in that day they lived in a very patriarchal society and you submitted to authority, whether it was your parents. He said slaves needed to submit to their master, children needed to submit to their parents, christians needed to submit to Nero, wherever the emperor was, even though they were killing people. Why? Because that was a cultural value both inside and outside the church, just in the whole surrounding region of submission to authority. Even bad authority was a cultural value. So if they were going to make any traction with the gospel, they need to abide by those cultural values. And so that's why you said hey, slaves, you need to submit to your master so that you could make to be winsome with your faith. And so as I started to wrap my mind around this new hermeneutic, it made sense and I don't think that Paul, if you were here today, would say that would apply the truth in that particular way to this context today. And I can believe that and still feel like I'm being faithful to scripture, that God's given us the Holy Spirit in the church to use wisdom to apply truth to our particular context that we're living in. And I just know I feel like if women's voices were heard more that we would be more fully formed disciples of Jesus. And that's coming out of the season where I felt like I've whitewashed the Bible a little bit and then I need a men of women of color, in different contexts, coming from different places, to preach the Bible to me because I'm missing things in my Bible if I'm not listening to people of color, because they can see things and spot things that I miss as a white male. So I came out of that season after that church merger of saying I need more of that in my life to become more fully formed disciple of Jesus. And now I'm saying I need more women's voices because, just as kids in every home, they need mom's voice and they need dad's voice to speak into their life and if one of those voices is suppressed the family unit is going to be somewhat anemic. I'll stop there, but hopefully that's a little bit helpful.

Speaker 3: 24:50

As an encouragement this is. I literally have Blue Letter Bible pulled up with First Timothy too, and I was just having a conversation about that word, authority that Paul used. So this is timely for me, even just a shared part of your story and testimony. And the one last piece of encouragement I've garnered is for someone to be under authority does not mean that their voice is not heard. So I think redefining what our structures of authority and safety look like would be paramount as well.

Speaker 1: 25:25

That's good, that makes sense. I did have a thing on. This is just a fun question for me that I've been wanting to ask somebody and you brought it up. Too bad, too bad. But so do you think the best approach for church is to look at the early church and be like, hey, this is what they did, this is how church was being done, acts two, this and that. Hey, should we be like striving for early church and get back to the roots of it, or should we be more trying to apply different hermeneutics, different biblical principles to our day and go into that rather than going back to the old ways?

Speaker 2: 26:09

That's good. That's a great question, Grant I got ready. Yay, that is a great question. I'm just so proud of you Because in most churches I've been in they glorify the past or glorify that first century church, and I think it's helpful because it's being written in the context of the canon. Where scripture is being written, the Holy Spirit is moving really powerfully and so I think we need to use that to examine how we're doing things today. I think every church context outside of the one we're living in right now can be prophetic. It can affirm us and it can be prophetic against the way we're doing things. I think looking at history in general is helpful, because we're all fish in water. We can't see what's going on. But when we read dead people, when we look to the past, we can examine how we're doing things. And reading the context of the Bible is extremely helpful, but I think we shouldn't over glorify it, at least in terms of the methods. I've seen some people say, hey, we're going to give up Sunday morning church and we're going to go to house churches and Francis Chan and other people are going towards house church and that's great. But there are some drawbacks to that as well in terms of catalyzing things in the collection of resources. Sometimes house churches miss out on that that sometimes the larger churches can do really well. So I wouldn't overglow or use the scriptures to over glorify like a certain model. That makes sense, yeah.

Speaker 1: 27:50

I get that. That makes sense.

Speaker 2: 27:53

But one last thought. I think what I see now is that if we grab on to the models and the ways that they're doing things in the Bible and don't reimagine it for our particular context in our day, we can actually be taking the church backwards rather than forwards. And so you see Jesus and Paul, especially with women, stretching the church like a rubber band. So Jesus made people really uncomfortable with the ways that he talked to the women at the well and he was like stretching them in a ways that were uncomfortable when it came to social issues. And Paul, by sending Phoebe to go read the letter of Romans to these five house churches I think it's around five, five house churches in Rome, you know employing women in his ministry, he was stretching people's hearts and making them uncomfortable because he was trying to push the church forward rather than moving them backwards. So I think sometimes, especially coming from a very conservative church background that I've been in, we can be doing a disservice by moving people backwards rather than forwards, and so we need to figure out how to. What is the spirit telling us? Where do we need to go, versus just going backwards, if that makes sense, Right?

Speaker 3: 29:20

I think one of the things that we often forget is the purpose of the Bible and scripture and the church is to solve a singular issue, but it's not to solve all issues and for me, recalling that the main issue is my alienation from the relationship that I'm supposed to have with God, like that's his primary concern and he brought up slavery, or like we could go into alcoholism or into nowadays, like addiction to media and entertainment, and like all of those things are important and do need to be addressed, but they're all being addressed to a singular purpose and sometimes it feels like the atrocities and the injustice that's visible in the modern day makes us forget that the primary issue is I'm not in right relationship with the God of the universe, and that's been helpful for me too. If that stays the main purpose of the bride of Christ, the church, then it allows her to bob and weave as culture changes and ask those questions. So that's what I hear you saying.

Speaker 2: 30:44

Yeah, and that's really what I'm doing at the Enneagram work to. Popular book out there is the road back to you, which I love and I've loved to Suzanne Sabille and Ian crowns work, and but I would love to write a follow book called the road back to God. I don't know if the publisher would let me, but that's essentially what I'm getting at is the Enneagram is not just any sort of psychology tool or anything, any cultural goods, not just helpful to the road back to you, but it's a road. The road back to God is my friend Lisa Vischer. She's the wife of Phil Vischer, the creator of Veggie Tales. Lisa is a huge Enneagram coach and she just says that Enneagram helps you to understand identity, who you are, but I put it in sort of new age terms, like your essence, but not really even new age terms. It's just modern psychology terms old self, new self, that those are psychology terms. And she says the gospel helps you to not just see, find who Like who you are, but who's you are and that's the most important thing is figuring out that you were created to have a right relationship with God. And so we actually use the Enneagram and the defense mechanisms and some of the psychology language to go back to the garden and Say what are your fig leaves, what are your defense mechanisms, what are the boundaries that you're putting up between you and God? Because those are the things that you need to overcome, to remember who's you are that, because that's the most important question awesome I am curious about.

Speaker 1: 32:20

So there's a lot of backlash on Enneagram, as I'm sure you've seen and know if you're an Enneagram coach, because there's two camps for me which I'm on team like super helpful tool. A lot of people misuse it because you can typecast people. You can be like oh, I'm a three and that's just what threes do and so just that's me. You know you don't take any like accountability for your actions. But there's also like this idea of you misusing the Enneagram and I'm just curious on, like, when do you think you should use it? What are the like how is it a helpful tool and less like a way of life kind of thing, because I had this buddy that literally was like man. I got this Enneagram church. Everybody talks about the Enneagram, so I just left the church, went to a different one because that government there's just all they do is talking about the Enneagram and I was like what I told I? I don't know anything about the Enneagram that much, but I was like, ah, man, sounds like a three, or just put out number because I don't know. But yeah, just how do you combat that?

Speaker 2: 33:29

I'm sure you've heard a lot more than I have, but I'm just I'm curious yeah, the hard thing about the Enneagram and I get it is there's certain things that go against what I call Enneagram ethics, what you just mentioned, using your type to justify sin. That would go against my bullet point list of Enneagram ethics. But then it's also Because of where it was developed and came from. There's a lot of, there's been a lot of confusion as to the origins of the Enneagram. Did it come from the desert fathers and mothers? Did it come from a demon or spirit? And because there has been some a lot of rumors circulating for a while, I think that's equal, that that's equally as hurtful or people have a lot of question marks because of that. It's not. Looks like my church just is really into the Myers-Briggs or my church is just really into the strengths finder. It's, I Think who was it? Kevin the young said if the Enneagram was just a strengths finder or Myers-Briggs tool, it wouldn't be a big deal. But because it claims to have a sort of a spiritual Background, that's what makes it dangerous. And so I think there's a lot of people just picked up on some things and that's what makes them want to Stay away from it and so, as a path, as a Pastor who was using this tool. I decided to go on a big deep dive into the origins, to figure out, to get to the bottom of some of these things, and Actually created an entire e-course that people can take, called the real history of the Enneagram, to get educated on the origins, to help, just to give them clarity on it and to give them confidence that they can use it as a Christian, just as a side note. So I've done a lot of homework along that, along those lines. But yeah, I think it's just like any tool if you use the Enneagram as a diagnosis, but the gospel as their solution. The gospel, the If Jesus is the one who saves you, not you saving yourself from your false ego and that you're relying on the Holy Spirit's power rather than your own power to transform yourself, that's. There's ways of transposing the Enneagram into a gospel key or a Christian key, and there's been a lot of authors since 2016, a lot of Christian, good Christian authors who have transposed the Enneagram Into a Christian key, and I think it's now more than ever it's a really safe time to be able to use this tool, because there's so many good books and authors out there, whereas a decade or two decades ago that wasn't the case. So, yeah, if you're a, if you're an evangelical, using the Enneagram, you're seeing it underground a couple decades ago, but not so much anymore. Yeah, I'll stop there. Is that anything resonating with you?

Speaker 1: 36:17

Yeah, I just wanted to know, first of all, what Enneagram are you? I'm a seven wing six. As far as I know, I took it the one time. I don't know how many times you have to take it, but I am. I have a seven wing six from the one time I took it. But yeah, just I was curious about what any grammar you and is there. And Jared, what any grammar you again?

Speaker 3: 36:42

A two wing one.

Speaker 1: 36:43

He's a two wing one. I'm a seven wing six. Okay three. You're three.

Speaker 2: 36:50

Three is what I resonate with the most. It's the achiever personality. So I'm gonna get, and I Again. The Enneagram was helpful for me because, as one pastor put it, it's sniper sanctification. It puts the crosshairs on different areas that you might be unintentionally avoiding or suppressing as you're reading through your daily devotional. And so the Enneagram made me wrestle with things like image. Like what? How am I Trying to find my worth and identity and having a good image? Why is it that I walk around with a Instagram filter all the time trying to make sure that I have a polished image? And and why do I fear failure so much? Why do I Put my identity in my work? Why is it like my work like growing extra limbs in my body? It's that when you attack my work, it feels like you're attacking me personally. Why is it? Why am I so sensitive to criticism and all these things that I never wrestled with to that degree? It was extremely helpful for me in the areas of sanctification. It's not. The Enneagram is not designed as a naval gazing Tool to make you feel good about yourself. In fact, the first kind of Enneagram cohort in the 70s in America. People, everyone was depressed. They're like. This is depressing to finding out about myself. So it was never created to be a fun ha this horse kind of fun, horoscope kind of tool. This was a deep psychology psychological tool. But when we bring the gospel in to remember our identity and remember who's we are and Find the power to change and transform, then that's where it's yeah, that's where it's powerful. But thanks for letting me go, you guys. A seven two. That's really fun to hear now.

Speaker 1: 38:42

I noticed you didn't say the wing. Is that just nonsense when I said oh no.

Speaker 2: 38:47

I believe that you have. I believe that you can access both Wings, which sounds weird to people who don't know about anything about the integrand. That just means, like an airplane wing, you have the numbers on both sides of you. You can take on some of the characteristics of one of the numbers next to you, and for me that's the four, which is like the individualists, the romantic, the deep, introspective kind of personality. So I tend to be a cheever, want to get things done, I want to get crap done and look good. Doing it is the slogan. And Then the four wing is the more the introspective, deep side which really comes out in my books. I try to go extremely deep into your personality to To come up with some really rich things for you to grab on to, to grow. So, yeah, I love it. My wife is a six-wing seven, by the way, so she's just flipped from you Okay, there you go what to me I'm selfish, like having somebody that is Spent so many years diving into a subject.

Speaker 3: 39:48

I want to know, if I were your son, what would you say to me about the tendencies of a two Wing one?

Speaker 1: 39:55

Hey, dude, I was gonna ask the same thing. Now, professor, give him your two wing one and I want to hear my six.

Speaker 3: 40:03

I want to be, coached.

Speaker 1: 40:05

I'd like to be coached.

Speaker 2: 40:07

I just finished my type seven book.

Speaker 1: 40:09

Oh, there we go, we're good.

Speaker 2: 40:11

I thought about it for the last six months and then the book before that. The book before that was the type two book. Now here's where it's helpful and here's where it can be. Harmful is. I can instantly know a lot of Information about you just by saying seven. I'm a seven-wing six that were two-wing one. But we're talking in crosses. We're talking in terms of probabilities, not absolutes. Hmm, so I take everything I know about a seven and just box you in and treat you as if you're the archetype, then that's not loving, that's not helpful. That's just saying that you you're telling me that you've already self identified it with a lot of the characteristics of seven, so that kind of speeds up the work. If I was a counselor or pastor, I can be like okay, if he resonates with some of the core motivations of seven, then that gives us a place to start. But I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna start Talking to you in absolutes like you are these archetypes or in two as well. I know a lot about twos, but I'm not gonna. I'm gonna ask good questions. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna box you in. So if her twos man, this was really helpful, because I had a employee in my church. I was a two and had a realization one day as I was thinking about the Enneagram I Was. I kept thinking in myself I probably look like a failure to him again. That's a type 3 issue because I. Probably look at a failure to him because these one-on-one meetings I'm not. It feels like I'm not like helping him to Grow fast enough or I'm not helping him with his goals. Good enough, I'm not getting him to worry, probably wants to go. And then I realized that twos don't care about that as much and and in the one-on-ones he wants to have a meaningful conversation with me, which you can see how your personality now is influencing this entire podcast about having meaningful conversations. That's very different than how, like a type 3 or somebody else, would what around the podcast Converse, casual conversation, meaningful conversation, that how's that productive?

Speaker 1: 42:21

It's a great.

Speaker 3: 42:22

It's not I have no idea, yeah, never thought about it.

Speaker 1: 42:25

I'm a 7, so I just did it for kicks.

Speaker 2: 42:31

This is why the podcast is so good for me, because as a 3 I can say okay, here's what's gonna be productive, here's what's gonna get results. Here are the three bullet points that we need to address, and that's helpful. That sort of intentionality gets you somewhere. But it can treat us as more as human doings rather than human beings. First of all, when we get too tied to our agenda and what we're doing and Also maybe the spirit wants to lead us in a different direction. And You're, you're creating by having this podcast, you're creating space for all kinds of divine interruptions or Divine detours, for us to go on, and it's more like how we would just relate as human beings. We we don't sit down with my wife with three bullet points and an agenda. When I sit down a doctor, we have a casual conversation and that, into the intimacy with God and intimacy with others, is where life and joy is found. So I appreciate the podcast, even though my first instinct as a 3 is to say house is gonna be productive, but you're. But again, as a 2, the scorecard for a 2 is if we have a meaningful Conversation, I'm gonna feel great at the end of the day and that is gonna feel productive for me and for a lot of other people, like my wife included. She would rather listen to a podcast. That's more of a casual conversation Than a lecture or presentation. Yeah, so yeah, that's a little bit about twos. Their scorecard is not how many things they get done on their checklist. Most of the time it's how many meaningful conversations have I had today. The 2 is gonna say am I, do I feel loved and wanted today? Do I feel pursued, do I feel lovable? And Oftentimes the answer is no. They don't feel that way. And so what a 2 does is they power up to go help other people. They say I need to go befriend this person, I need to go help this person. What are the needs of my family? I'm gonna go serve other people and because it just have. That's the way they reflect God, as they reflect God as a helper, as someone who is generous, as someone who is a giver, and. But when they're unhealthy, they will just give it. Give in order to get, in order to get that love, external validation coming back to them. So when they forget the gospel that they are loved for who they are, not how they, how much they help they will. Who operate in the flesh rather than the spirit, and we'll just give, serve a friend, hoping that someone tells them that day that they're a great friend, that they're lovable, that they're appreciated, that they're Indispensable, that they're, that they're the best friend. To hear those words is really powerful. For a 2, yeah, for a 7, most of my best friends are 7s. I just, I really like 7s, partly because I'm in what's called the shame triad, so my dominant emotion that I feel a lot of times is shame and being around 7s. They see a really good job Making me not feel ashamed. They're very Understanding, they give a lot of grace, like my first disciple. Look back now. I didn't know this at the time, but my first disciple maker, my mentor, was a 7 and so he really discipled me out of shame. And I know a 7 pastor who just gave a sermon called shame off you, because so many people hear shame on you, and he was like shame off you, like Jesus Took your shame and put it off of you, and I love that because that really Describes a 7. Being around a 7 is so positive. It's, they're lighthearted, they're fun, they're adventurous. They just help us to experience that verse that says at God's right hand, our pleasures forevermore in the. In his presence, there is fullness of joy, and so God, by being being around God, is a pleasurable as experience is a life-giving experience, and so when we get around 7s, his life, his joy really Exude, exude from 7s life, and we can experience the fullness, the abundance of God by being in a 7s presence. So that's the good. The bad is that they got, they have a gluttony for experiences, a gluttony not just for food, but for All kinds of new ideas and new adventures and new experiences. And God's. There's this first that says I am God, I'm in the heavens and I do all that I please. And 7s are like I want that life, I want to. I don't want any limitations, I want to kind of do whatever I want to do whenever I want to do it. I want to try everything, and, and I don't want any limitations or rules or boundaries, I don't want God to tell me that I can't eat that apple on the tree. That's though. I don't like that rule, I don't have that limitation, I want it all. And that's where 7s Try to be more than human. They try to be omnipresent, they want to be in all places at all times. So they took because they have the most FOMO out of every number and they have a fear of missing out and God is omnipresent and that would be pretty cool. So they want to be like God in that sense and so the I Get it. That's a really appealing but as if you're in all places at all times, you're always when, you're always devouring life. You can't digest life. So when you're always trying to devour new experiences, go after every five new ideas during the day, you're always going to be trying to devour life, but you're never going to be able to be fully present To be able to slow down and digest what you're experiencing and actually lead to a fulfilling life. 7s are actually not that fulfilled Because that's why they constantly are going after more is because they're not fulfilled. But if they can slow down and find, join the present and Find join their commitments, then they can digest the gifts of God and enjoy them rather than continuing to look to the future and going after more. You guys are a great team because the twos are gonna be very present-oriented and not really thinking about the future much, and 7s are gonna always be thinking about the future and have a hard time being present. So both of you guys have that sort of present like futuristic. Here's where we can go here. Let's take advantage of these new opportunities and the twos in these moments like right now are gonna be really helpful and Going really deep and being fully present with your guests. So you guys are a great team.

Speaker 1: 49:16

Thanks for listening to the across the counter podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please rate us five stars, wherever you got this podcast. Thanks, y'all.