A Christ-Centered, Attachment Based, Church Program for the Healing of Father Wounds

Father wounds have devastated the hearts of men as to make impotent their effectiveness as fathers, leaders, and ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This dissertation used Christ- centered attachment-based theories to develop a church-driven program that includes discipleship disciplines along with counseling techniques to help develop a more secure relational attachment to God and therefore producing psychospiritual benefits, such as a greater love of self, others, and God. This research evaluated the efficacy of the development of this Christ-centered, attachment-based church program for the Healing of Father wounds. This program development looks to secure the participants’ attachment to God to decrease religious and emotional stress while increasing mental and spiritual health. This 6-week program consisted of a male Christian, psychoeducational group of 8 to 10 members who used the proprietary God Experience Attachment Repair (G.E.A.R.) program, which employed the study of God’s word (TheoRhema) along with therapeutic techniques to expose participants to the heart of Christ (KardiaChristos), thereby forming a secure attachment base with God. This secure base was the pivotal factor in facilitating a biblical encounter with Jesus and thereby correcting the participants’ relational style