The Four Loves (Part Two): are you a Heart type?

Heart types thrive on connectivity and relationship

To love God with all of one’s heart is to find ourselves and our faith energized as we passionately invest in relationships. Those who fall within this type have a root experience of God that is directly linked to their experience with people. Heart types are usually sensitive, empathetic, enthusiastic and compassionate. They tend to feel things very intensely and live and love out of a heightened sensitivity to the moods and emotions of others. They are often quick to involve themselves in activities that hold the promise of a substantial emotional or relational outcome.

Heart types look to Scripture primarily to deepen their sense of connection with God and to learn how to deepen their relationships with others. Jesus’ statement “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35) is an example of the kind of Scripture that a Heart type hears and says “Yes! That’s what it’s all about!” They know that if we don’t embed a love for God and others into everything we do we gain nothing (1 Corinthians 13:3). When talking about their faith Heart types gravitate towards word pictures that strike a more relational chord. They talk about their “personal relationship with Jesus” and describe their church community as “my family”. They are often vulnerable and sensitive in relational contexts and this makes them valuable members to churches, where they are often appreciated for their relational gifts.

Heart types experience God most strongly during times of community and togetherness. From church socials to conversations before/after church, Heart types tend to find Sunday morning factors like the message or music far secondary to whether they feel connected to God and others during their time together. People and relationships make the difference for this root type. This is why many Heart types will stay at churches through all kinds of congregational dysfunction. The relationships that they have established are extremely valuable to them, and supersede whatever issues may be surfacing within their church context.

It’s so important for Heart types to grow beyond their root because the temptation to identify God’s presence and activity with their current emotional state is a strong one for them. For an immature Heart type, if they feel good, then God is good; if they feel depressed, God has abandoned them; if they feel they are growing, God must be at work in their lives. God does speak to us through our emotions, but our emotions are not a reliable foundation for spiritual growth and discernment. Heart types must seek to grow in the other dimensions or they risk developing a spirituality that can hardly be distinguished from emotionalism. Emotionalism is a condition characterized by being “tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there” (Ephesians 4:14) by the ups and downs of one’s emotional experiences.