What does your past mean to your present?
Very few of us want to revisit the past. But the reality is our past influences our present. Who we are has been shaped by where we come from. For most of us, our family of origin is the single most significant influence on our life, for good or evil. And no matter how healthy your family and childhood experience was, every family line has human, dysfunctional patterns. None of us grew up in perfect divine love, and we all inherited ways of living from our family of origin and culture that are out of sync with the way of Jesus. So a key task in our apprenticeship with Jesus is re-learning how to relate well to God, ourselves, and others. But first, we have to go back to go forward. We need a way to see what was broken so we can transform.
The Genogram Workbook
In the Genogram Workbook, we will discover the power of the past by creating a family genogram. The goal is to review key events in your family history and identify generational sins, brokenness, relational patterns, and inherited values. We will also discover the strengths and benefits we have inherited.
We are not looking for ways to blame our family of origin for the problems we experience today; instead, we use the Genegram to see broken relational patterns so we can take responsibility for change and celebrate the good things we’ve received.
*We are indebted to Bridgetown Church in Portland, OR. The copy you see here and the Genogram Workbook has been adapted from theirs for our context, and we are so thankful for their generosity and for developing these tools.
To begin, listen to this introductory teaching on the Genogram:
2. Watch this video to learn how to begin filling out your Genogram:
3. Watch this video to learn how to add symbols and behavioral patterns to your Genogram:
