How Do Men and Women Show Physical Affection in the Church?

00:00:00.000 | Here's an email from a pastor who writes in to ask about one of those tricky pastoral

00:00:09.920 | dilemmas that pop up from time to time.

00:00:12.680 | He asks this, "Is it appropriate for pastors to hug female members of his church, and single

00:00:18.960 | women in particular?

00:00:21.200 | What does appropriate pastoral affection towards the opposite sex look like for a pastor?"

00:00:28.780 | Good pastoral question, or any Christian question, I suppose.

00:00:34.100 | And let me start with three Bible pointers, and then I'll talk from my own experience

00:00:39.040 | what I've learned.

00:00:41.440 | Number one, the Bible speaks of a holy kiss, from which I infer at least this, there is

00:00:49.840 | such a thing as a holy hug.

00:00:52.760 | Second, the Bible also says treat younger women as sisters, older women as mothers.

00:00:59.320 | In other words, the atmosphere of the church should be a safe family place for healthy,

00:01:07.600 | wholesome family affection.

00:01:10.440 | Number three, the Bible says, "To the pure, all things are pure," which means that we

00:01:18.440 | need to know ourselves.

00:01:21.880 | If our thoughts are impure, and our hearts are impure, then a hug may be impure.

00:01:30.180 | So the issue is a deep heart issue, and we need to be doing work there before we start

00:01:35.920 | getting strategies in our head about doing the right kind of hugging.

00:01:40.320 | Okay, on the basis of those three, and from my experience, here's what I've learned.

00:01:46.040 | I've hugged, goodnight, what, thousands, hundreds of women, most of them right in front of the

00:01:52.640 | church after a service or after a speaking event.

00:01:56.880 | I mean, lots of women with tears in their eyes, having been transformed by something

00:02:01.840 | I wrote, say, "Can I just hug you?

00:02:03.360 | What are you going to say?"

00:02:05.520 | And I have talked to a lot of women and a lot of men about the experience of being hugged.

00:02:12.700 | And here's some things I've learned to take into consideration.

00:02:16.040 | Number one, there are lonely people in the church who don't have a spouse.

00:02:21.560 | They don't have many friends that are close.

00:02:24.200 | One woman told me, she said, "There are women in this church who have not been hugged by

00:02:30.320 | a human being for 10 years, and they need to be hugged in a holy way by a holy, mature

00:02:39.160 | man, simply to feel fully loved in a holy way."

00:02:46.440 | I think that's right.

00:02:49.020 | We are family, and families have bodies, and bodies are not just sex instruments.

00:02:57.080 | That's important.

00:02:58.080 | And it's probably more true for women than for men, but it's true for men too.

00:03:02.080 | It ought to be anyway.

00:03:04.200 | Bodies are not just sex instruments.

00:03:06.180 | They are instruments of trust, instruments of affirmation, instruments of holy affection.

00:03:13.860 | That's number one.

00:03:15.300 | Number two, all of us should grow in our ability to discern what the other person needs and

00:03:23.860 | wants and is accustomed to.

00:03:27.020 | Don't force your way of hugging on others when they are uncomfortable with it.

00:03:34.180 | That is a very delicate balancing act as you meet a person for the first time.

00:03:42.760 | This calls for extraordinary discernment, right?

00:03:46.040 | In split seconds, you're making a judgment call here.

00:03:49.480 | In general, I would not, not take the initiative to hug a woman who's not taking that initiative

00:03:59.280 | with me unless there were significant relational precedents that established that's what we

00:04:09.280 | do when we meet.

00:04:11.760 | And there's a kind of mutuality understanding of what it means.

00:04:15.560 | So there may be a long friend that you haven't seen for ages, and when you see each other,

00:04:20.200 | you don't need to ask, "I wonder if a hug would be appropriate here."

00:04:23.560 | Well, it's a given.

00:04:24.960 | Because you know her, you know, you got a long history together.

00:04:29.560 | In general, though, I would say let the woman signal that a hug would be appropriate or

00:04:37.640 | welcome.

00:04:38.720 | Number three, adapt to the kind of hug being offered.

00:04:43.200 | Now, this too is a gift of sensitivity.

00:04:46.400 | There are all kinds of hugs, right?

00:04:48.960 | Face hugs, lean over hugs, one arm hugs, two arm hugs, minimal contact hugs, lots of contact

00:04:57.240 | hugs.

00:04:58.520 | Let the woman set this.

00:05:03.320 | Don't ever communicate as a man any kind of aggression or any kind of sexual attraction

00:05:10.800 | unless she's your wife.

00:05:12.600 | Number four, learn quickly from the kind of hug that just happened what's going on.

00:05:19.640 | I have sometimes gotten hugs that felt to me very inappropriate.

00:05:27.600 | Learn from that and put your guard up and don't go there again.

00:05:34.000 | She comes to see you, don't go there.

00:05:37.200 | Don't go there.

00:05:38.200 | Don't give her the opportunity for that kind of hug.

00:05:41.680 | Now that's a delicate judgment because maybe she didn't mean that, but we've got to learn

00:05:47.120 | how to discern.

00:05:48.120 | Don't welcome it, avoid it.

00:05:50.480 | Number five, take the setting into account.

00:05:54.160 | I'm always more at ease hugging another woman when my wife is present.

00:05:58.600 | In private, say she comes to see you in your office, you leave the door open or there's

00:06:02.720 | a window.

00:06:04.260 | In private, I'm very wary about putting myself in a position of hugging and I wouldn't offer

00:06:11.200 | it.

00:06:12.200 | I wouldn't offer it.

00:06:13.200 | She may ask for it and you may grant it, but you would be very wary and very careful about

00:06:19.320 | the setting and you would minimize privacy in those settings of counsel.

00:06:25.600 | The last thing I would say is don't be so stiff and so wary and so cautious that you

00:06:32.520 | can't hug.

00:06:34.320 | There are cultures and there are persons who feel treated badly without a hug.

00:06:41.160 | If you let your principles or your prickliness hold you back in those settings, you're not

00:06:47.800 | as free as you should be.

00:06:51.020 | We should speak other body languages sometimes besides our own for the good of another culture

00:06:58.240 | or another personality.

00:07:00.980 | So all in all, I would say this, establish a principled and emotionally healthy and happy

00:07:08.240 | place at your church where people feel safe, especially women, safe to hug or not to hug.

00:07:16.920 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:07:18.720 | You may remember the practice of hugs actually emerged in an unlikely episode, episode number

00:07:23.400 | 124, which we titled Mealtime Prayers, Necessary or Optional?

00:07:29.000 | In there, Pastor John, you develop this point about how habits of the body nourish habits

00:07:33.740 | of the soul, even when the physical acts feel forced in the moment.

00:07:37.840 | It's worth checking out.

00:07:38.840 | That's episode number 124.

00:07:41.240 | Well tomorrow is Christmas Eve and next time on the podcast, Pastor John and I will be

00:07:45.480 | joined by Noel Piper to explain what Christmas looked like in the Piper home for the last

00:07:50.720 | 40 plus years.

00:07:51.720 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.

00:07:52.720 | We'll see you tomorrow.

00:07:52.720 | Tony Reinke. We'll see you tomorrow.

00:07:54.360 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

How Do Men and Women Show Physical Affection in the Church?

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