Touch: The Power of Touch in Transforming Lives

The sense of touch is extraordinary. Years ago, a group of researchers conducted a study on preemies or prematurely born babies. Babies, who received a healthy and affectionate dose of touch by human hands, thrived and grew rapidly. Babies, who were not touched in the same manner, in some cases, willed themselves to an early death or developed slowly from a condition termed as “skin hunger.” Pastor Rudy beautifully articulates a person’s need to receive a sincere and affectionate touch – from God and His grace in skin – to thrive and to grow.

In a nutshell, Pastor Rudy doesn’t want anyone to perish because of skin hunger. He has a pure motivation to disciple people to become touching and transforming followers of Christ; to move away from being the distant Christian who would prefer to give money and things to the least of these to move toward being deeper in our empathy and compassion for the world God so loves.

Touch dispenses invaluable wisdom on serving others as led by the Lord, trusting His lead, and not our own. Pastor Rudy writes about service burnout, self‑righteous service, and even service that really isn’t service at all. He states, “Caring for ‘the least of these’ reveals our values and challenges our security.”

Touch is about living an authentic Christian life that isn’t afraid to touch people’s lives in the model of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a clarion call to the Body of Christ to, in the immortal words of B. B. King, “live the life that” we “sing about in” our songs – every last one of those glorious songs of faith and love for God we sing on Sunday mornings. It is a clarion call to shun a smoke and mirrors Christianity that is all about the bling-bling and mean, mean green to embrace a path of integrity and genuine love for our neighbors.

He writes, “The great preacher D. L. Moody accurately observed, ‘Out of 100 men, one will read the Bible; the other 99 will read the Christian.’ They’re looking for authenticity. Let’s not let them down.”