I guess it struck me when I was talking about Love Languages (Gary Chapman) with my Pastoral Care Students (or maybe my wife’s CPE trainees… I can’t remember for sure). As I was talking about the five love languages <Quality Time, Words of Affirmation, Physical Touch, Receiving Gifts, and Acts of Service>, I noted that each person responds positively to words or actions of another that lines up with one’s own affinity (love language). So, if my love language is “Acts of Service,” I am likely to respond positively to someone doing acts of service for me, and see such action as loving.

And that is good to know. To appear loving to someone else, I am most likely to be successful if I act in a way that aligns with their own love language, rather than my own personal love language. For me, I am a “Words of Affirmation” type. Although “Acts of Service” are nice, I don’t typically see them as acts of love. But if I want to show my love for a person whose love language is acts of service I must step out of my own affinities and adjust to that of the other. While Love Language is pretty simple, it can be pretty powerful in talking about relationships.

But there is a dark side to Love Languages. It also tells us how to manipulate others. If I know that someone’s love language is receiving gifts, I can use gifts to manipulate that person. The person is likely to see gifts given as a positive expression of lovingness– NOT as a selfish ploy to get my own way.

Of course, Strengths are subjective things. What one calls one’s strength, another might call one’s:

• Need. This one is pretty obvious. Love language explicitly identifies itself neutrally— If one’s love language is “Quality Time,” it is a strength in that one is likely to be much better to demonstrate love through quality time over those of a different love language. However, since that is the love language one operates under, it is the demonstration of love that one desires/needs. A lot of other tests like this can be said to be similar. 9 Spiritual pathways expresses a strength in worship… but in so doing also expresses what one’s craves/needs. Murray’s Psychogenic Needs can also be described as personal strengths (or weaknesses… more on that later).
• Treasure/Idol. Jesus stated that where our treasure is, there are heart is also. Strengths, needs, treasures, and idols then tend to be overlapping items. Christopher Wright speaks of idols as things we worship— that which inspires awe in us, that which we desire, that which we fear, and that which overcomes our fear.
• Weakness. Strengths are our weaknesses? Well that is for Part 2.

In Part 2 is seeking to redefine strength and show how this relates to missions.