When was the last time you experienced true affection at church? For many Christians a handshake as you’re leaving Sunday service has become the norm. We don’t expect anything more from each other because we’ve been taught that we shouldn’t express too much affection at church. All of this is an effort to remain virtuous.
However, I think we’ve stepped over the line and used this as an excuse, or maybe even to justify our fear, and removed almost all affection in our church communities. This is a problem. In our good attempt to keep ourselves pure we’ve actually relegated the church to an ice box that misses a big part of the heart of God.
Jesus loved affection and it’s the heart of the father to smother us with His love. The point we’re missing? Not all affection is sexual. Paul says several times to greet one another with a holy kiss (Romans 16:16, 2 Corinthians 13:12, 2 Corinthians 13:12) and Peter said to greet each other with a kiss of love (1 Peter 5:14). We all have a need for affection—it’s a community thing not a sexual thing.
Is it possible that if we can get healthy affection in church then we wouldn’t go looking for it somewhere else?
This article was written by Kris Vallotton, read more here
