A NEXT CHURCH COHORT – Begins Fall 2025
ENNEAGRAM AND LEADERSHIP
Building Your Inner Team
The Enneagram is a personality type system that illustrates the interconnections between nine core archetypes. Each of us comes into life with a personality we use to make our way in the world and navigate challenges. In conversation with the Enneagram, we can celebrate the strengths God has given us, identify our personality tendencies, put deeper self-understanding into action, and gain compassion for ourselves and others.
The aim of the cohort will be to identify natural gifts and reflexive tendencies, develop instinctive capacities, identify underused strengths, learn how to approach conflict with awareness, and begin to apply the concepts in participants’ leadership contexts.
Participants will have access to course content for each session via online platform. Cohort sessions will include teaching, group coaching, breakout conversations, and Q&A time.
Every participant will receive 5 individual coaching sessions to deepen their work with the Enneagram, to seek self-insight, and to identify actions and practices for growth as individuals and leaders. These sessions are scheduled monthly with the coach.
Group sessions that include enneagram concepts, coaching, and leadership development
Individual coaching sessions to engage concepts, seek self-insight, and identify actions and practices
Course content for each session delivered on NEXT Church’s e-learning platform – Teachable
Cohort Details
- Participants will learn alongside a cohort of peers, receive both group and individual coaching from a highly trained and certified coach.
- 90-minute group sessions will include presentations of Enneagram concepts, group coaching, breakout conversations, and Q&A time.
- Additionally, every participant will receive 5 individual coaching sessions to further deepen their work. These sessions are scheduled monthly with the coach and are completed within 5 months of the cohort start date.
- This cohort will meet on the first Wednesdays of the month from 2:00-3:30pm ET (11:00am-12:30pm PT) on October 1, November 5, December 3, January 7, February 4, and March 4.
- Spaces are limited to keep the cohort experience small.
- Cost is $799 per participant.
Moving Towards Impact
NEXT Church values opportunities that lead to impact as a way to interrupt a consumer culture. In a consumer culture, participants sit back and consume what an expert is saying without ownership for learning and growth. But if we want to transform our communities, our churches, and ourselves, we must play an active role to create impact.
NEXT Church also believes the hard work of learning that leads to justice is best done in accountable community. As people of faith, we believe community is essential for faithful discernment, support, and mutual accountability. Cohort participants and leaders are invited to challenge and hold one another accountable.
Because of these values, we partner cohort learning with individual coaching. By registering for a cohort, you accept the invitation into this community as an active learner with a commitment towards actionable transformation.
Time
Wednesdays
2:00-3:30pm ET
(11:00am-12:30pm PT)
Dates
October 1, November 5, December 3, January 7, February 4, March 4
Coaching
Every participant will receive 5 individual coaching sessions – these should be scheduled in between cohort meetings.
Cost
$799 per person
About the Sessions
Enneagram 101
We begin with an overview of the Enneagram, examining the framework of intelligence centers and social styles, then exploring the characteristics and motivations of the 9 core types.
Going Deeper with Subtypes
We will explore the ways in which our instinctual drives as human beings connect with our core personality type. Identifying the way in which we privilege one instinct over the others provides a key to who we are and how we might grow.
Growing Along the Arrow Lines
Each type is connected to two other types, as indicated by the arrow lines on the Enneagram symbol. This session will focus on the capacities and growth paths available to us when we access them consciously.
Adding Wings to our Inner Team
This session will explore how adopting the energy of our neighboring types can open new perspectives in leadership and life. We will identify the inner teammates we need most in our leadership contexts.
Conflict and Communication
In leadership roles, we are called on to communicate with others and navigate conflicts. In this session we will look at conflict styles by type and explore communications meta-messages for all nine types.
Practices for Self-Development
Putting together what we have learned over the cohort time, we will identify areas for continued growth in our particular contexts and commit to practices for self-development.
Martha completely reframed my understanding of Enneagram material, which was tremendously helpful. Her individual coaching was tremendous and the group was terrific!
Martha’s style is accessible and affirming, clear and comprehensive. I would highly recommend this course to others.
Martha’s enneagram presentations were excellent. I have been working with the enneagram for several years but I learned so much from her!
Martha presented the enneagram in a much more positive way than I was accustomed to. Her knowledge of the whole enneagram came through very clearly.
Leadership
Martha Spong
Coach
Martha Spong (she/her) is an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC), and an iEQ9 Accredited Enneagram Practitioner. In her coaching practice, she offers Enneagram training for clergy and for church and judicatory leaders and staff. Martha has worked with NEXT Church since 2019, coaching the Enneagram, Antiracism as a Way of Being, and Preaching for Change. Now a full-time coach, she previously served churches in Maine and Pennsylvania. Co-author of Denial is My Spiritual Practice (and Other Failures of Faith) and editor of The Words of Her Mouth: Psalms for the Struggle. Martha lives in Mechanicsburg, PA, with her wife, Kathryn Johnston, a PCUSA pastor. A devoted Mimi to three adorable grandchildren, she also loves knitting, baking, and baseball.
Questions
For questions about the coaching cohort, contact Jen James.
