God Views Week 2 How We Developed Our View of God

Song “Come and Do What You Have to Do Lord” by Ruth Fazal Come and do what You have to do Lord Come and say what You have to say. Come and work in our hearts anew Lord, Jesus, come and have Your way.

DVD clip from God Views by Curt Cloninger Introduction to the God Views Video Series.

Curt Cloninger “Show me someone’s picture of God, and I’ll show you how they live their lives.”

What I attend to (look at; believe), I will become like. Believing God was judgmental – I became judgmental

Where did my distortions come from? CultureChurchReligionPeersFamily

What affects us most are significant people in our early lives (parents and parental substitutes).

Where did my distortions come from? Often we transfer our parents characteristics onto God.

Personal Reflection Worksheet 1-B Worksheet 1-B In the space, please respond to the following words with the first words or images that spring to your mind. Write down the first five responses for each category.

DVD clip from God Views by Curt Cloninger Beverly Oxley’s testimony

Your Parents and You Our views of God, our self- concepts and our abilities to relate to others are primarily shaped by our parental relationships.

Your Parents and You The foundation of our emotional, relational, and spiritual health is usually established by parental modeling, and the results can be wonderful or tragic.

My Relationship with My Father This exercise is to help you examine your relationship with your father as you were growing up. Check the appropriate squares as you recall how he related to you when you were young.

Evaluating My Relationship with God We can begin to see how our relationships with our parents have influenced our perception of God when we evaluate our present relationship with Him.

Evaluating My Relationship with God  Answer openly and honestly. Don’t respond from a theological knowledge of God, but from personal experience.  Don’t describe what the relationship ought to be, or what you hope it will be, but what it is right now.

Evaluating My Relationship with God Turn each characteristic into a question.  To what degree do I really feel that God loves me?  To what degree do I really feel that God understands me?

My Father’s Influence on My Relationship with God To make a comparison, transfer all of the check marks you made for your own father onto the father & God comparison chart. Transfer them to the shaded columns using check marks.

My Father’s Influence on My Relationship with God Next, transfer the marks from your relationship with God chart. To make them more obvious, use an “x” and put them in the white columns in the appropriate places.

My Mother’s Influence on My Relationship with God To make a comparison, transfer all of the check marks you made for your own mother onto the mother & God comparison chart. Transfer them to the shaded columns using check marks.

My Mother’s Influence on My Relationship with God Next, transfer the marks from your relationship with God chart. To make them more obvious, use an “x” and put them in the white columns in the appropriate places.

Song “I Hope You Dance” By LeeAnn Womack