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Created in the Image of God

METHOD / TIME / KNOWLEDGE
Created by GTN, Joni and Friends and Global CHE Network
Created in the Image of God
Date: 2008 / (1HOUR)
OBJECTIVES: /
  1. Participants will understand that God created every person in His image.
  2. Participants will understand that God uniquely creates each person according to His will and purposes.
  3. Participants will understand that every person created in the image of God, including persons with disabilities, has value, worth and dignity.

OVERVIEW FOR TRAINERS: GTN (The Global Transformation Network) is a Global CHE Network disability consultant and partner assisting in the development of disability focused lessons.
METHOD / TIME / KNOWLEDGE
Role-play:
1st Mom / My daughter was born deaf. She can’t hear anything and she can’t talk. / 10
min / Some children are born with disabilities.
2nd Mom / Since my son was born he has been very slow to learn everything. He doesn’t understand or remember what I tell him. He still cannot dress himself or speak words clearly.
1st Mom / I’m ashamed of my daughter and keep her in the house so no one can see how she is.
2nd
Mom / My husband blames me for my son’s problems. I am so ashamed and feel hopeless and helpless. / .
1stMom / I feel the same way. I think God is angry with us. He has punished us by giving us these damaged children.
2nd
Mom / What can we do?

----SHOWD questions----

S = What do you See?
H = What is Happening?
O = Does this happen in Our place?
W = Why does this happen?
D = What will we Do about it? / The mothers are:
  • Ashamed of their children.
  • Blamed for their disabilities.
  • Hide their children.
  • Feelhopeless and helpless.
  • Think God is angry with them.
  • Are worried about the future for
their children.
  • Do not know what to do.

I. / Read Genesis 1:26-27 and discuss the following questions as a large group. / I. / Read Genesis 1:26-27 and discuss the following questions as a large group.
A. What does it mean to be created by God and bear God’s image? / 25 min / A. All men and women are created by God and are like Him in many ways.
  1. God creates us with some of His character qualities.
/
  1. We know right from wrong.
  2. We can talk to each other and to God.
  3. We have emotions, like God has.
  4. We can ask questions, like God does.
  5. We can solve problems.
  6. We can think logically.
  7. We seek to be in relationship with others and with God.
  8. We seek to love and be loved.
  9. We desire unity and peace
  10. We desire to know others and be known by them.

How are we created us asunique human beings? / How are we created us as unique human beings?
A. Psalm 139:13-16 / A. Psalm 139:13-16
1.Who creates each person in a mother’s womb? /
  1. God wonderfully creates each person in a mother’s womb.
  2. God decides and chooses every detail of our living being before we are born.

2.How does God create each person in a mother’s womb? /
  1. Life begins in the womb.
  2. In the womb God himself oversees the development of each child before delivery.

  1. At conception the genetic material from the father’s sperm and the mother’s egg are woven together and unite to create a new, unique person.
  2. Genes are genetic material.
  3. Genescontaincodes which holddetailed plans for the baby, making him or her special and unique.

B. Jeremiah 1:5 / B. Jeremiah 1:5
  1. When does God first know us?
/
  1. God knows us even before we are formed in our mother’s womb.

C. Exodus 4:11,12 / C. Exodus 4:11,12
  1. Is every person uniquely made by God and for God’s purpose and plan?
/
  1. Yes. God makes each person unique for His purposes.
  2. God’s plan is perfect even if a child is born with a physical or mental disability.

lll. / Divide into small groups. Read the following Bible passages and discuss the value, worth, and purpose of every human being whatever their physical or mental condition. Report back to the group. / 25 min / lll. / Divide into small groups. Read the following Bible passages and discuss the value, worth, and purpose of every human being whatever their physical or mental condition.
A. I Peter 2:24 / A. I Peter 2:24
  1. How can we know that God loves and values every human being that He created?
/
  1. Jesus, God’s son, paid the price for the sin of human beings He created with his death.
  2. Every person is of great value to God.

C. Ephesians 1:4-6 / C. Ephesians 1:4-6
  1. When did God first know us and choose to love us?
  2. Why did God choose to adopt us as his children and make us blameless through the blood of Christ?
/
  1. Before the creation of the world and before we were born.
  2. Because it pleased Him to love us, not because of how perfect we are physically or mentally or because of what say or do or have.

D. Ephesians 2:10 / D. Ephesians 2:10
  1. How is God involved in who we are and what we do?
/
  1. We are God’s workmanship.
  2. We are created in Jesus Christ to do good work.
  3. God prepares our work before we do it.

E. Colossians 3:11 / E. Colossians 3:11
  1. Are all people equal in Christ whether disabled or able bodied?
/
  1. Yes, we are all equal in Christ. Christ is all and in all.

F. I John 3;16 / F. I John 3;16
  1. Who does God say that He loves?
/
  1. God loves every person, able-bodied or disabled.
  2. God’s love gives equal value, dignity and worth to every person.
  3. Each person is made in God’s image.
  4. Each person may receive the gift of eternal life by believing in Jesus Christ.

References:Stock Illustration - Schematic drawing of placenta and fetus demonstrating the fetal circulation

PDB08006 LifeART Royalty Free Photograph

ATTITUDE: / Facilitator has demonstrated from scripture that all people are created by God in His own image.
Facilitator has demonstrated from scripturethat God loves the people He creates, even persons who are not perfect or who are disabled.
SKILLS: / Participants will value persons with disabilities.
Disabled participants will value their own dignity and self-worth.
Participants will understand basic principles of genetics (the inheritance of traits from two parents).
EVALUATION: / Facilitators will know that participants have learned the content of this lesson when they begin to accept and love persons with disabilities as people created in God’s image and loved by Him.
MATERIALS: / Newsprint
Marking pen
Bibles
Handouts: (1) Basic Principles of Genetics; (2)Fertilized Human Embryo

This lesson is part of the Disability Series.

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Created in the Image of God

METHOD / TIME / KNOWLEDGE