This Christmas, we're delighted to bring back one of our most beloved conversations with Enneagram Three, pastor, and author AJ Sherrill. In this replay, AJ joins me to revisit the Nativity story—not as the sentimental tale we often breeze past each year, but as a rich, multilayered narrative pulsing with mystery, courage, vulnerability, and divine surprise.

AJ shares his own journey into spiritual direction, what it's teaching him about listening, presence, and compassion, and how the Enneagram continues to shape his inner world. We explore why the season invites us to slow down, pay attention, and resist the frantic pace that so easily numbs our capacity for wonder.

Together, we dig beneath the familiar Christmas imagery to uncover the often-misunderstood characters who surround the manger—the homeowner who offered radical hospitality, Zechariah rediscovering awe through silence, and even Herod, whose shadow side has more to teach us than we might expect. Their stories echo our own desires, fears, and growth edges in striking ways.

We also have some fun speculating about the Enneagram archetypes present in the Christmas narrative—Mary, Joseph, John the Baptist, and others—and how their unique postures toward God can inspire our own transformation.

This episode is thoughtful, illuminating, and sprinkled with the kind of laughter and honesty that always seems to show up when AJ is with us.

A perfect listen for Christmas Day.

Settle in, take a breath, and join us as we rediscover the story beneath the story—and the God who meets us there.