Page 19 - Youth Discipleship Student Textbook

Section 4: Establishing a Theo-centric world view.

4.1 Connect

Everyone has a world view. It’s the information stored in your brain that gives you
perspective about life and the world. Your world view will determine most of your
behavior or responses to others.

Your world view is developed over time, beginning when you were a small baby. As you
learned, you found things that worked in your favor and other things that you should avoid. You learned
how to think. You learned what was considered proper and what was a no-no. Over the years, you have
created a framework in your mind that determines your method of thinking about everything. It forms
your views about God, people, politics, green-house gases, black lives matter, and everything else that
comes your way. So your world view is EXTREMELY important because out of a person’s heart flow the
issues of life (Proverbs 4:23).

Your world view can be in agreement with God’s world view, or oppose His views. He declared His views
in the Bible. If you agree with God, then your world view is theocentric (God-centered). But if your
views oppose God’s views, your world view will send you in a direction that opposes God. As a youth
minister, you will face the fact that most youth have a naturalistic world view. Your task will be to help
them develop a theocentric world view. Let’s see how you can do that….

4.2 Objectives

1. The student should be able to define what a world view is.

2. The student should be able to explain how a world view is developed over time.

3. The student should be able to define the two basic world views and describe each.

4. The student should be able to explain how a Christian may have a secular world view and why.

4.3 World Views

What exactly is a world view?

A world view is the sum total of answers that a person can give to the most important
questions in life. If you take all the big questions in life, compile all your answers, and
however coherent the system may result from these answers is your world view.

Everyone has a world view which is developed over time. In the case of teenagers, their world view is
evolving or developing as they experience life. And if a child is raised in a loving home, a child’s view will

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