Saying "Father God" religion?

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JoeFreedom

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My family and I volunteer at a local Christian food packing group called Feed My Starving Children. At the end of the session packing food, people are invited to the warehouse to pray over the food (or go back to the front room if they don’t want to pray). We’ve been doing this for years now, and the staff always ask if any of the volunteers want to pray instead of the staff. Over the years (obviously at different times from different people), I’ve heard the person saying the prayer say “Father God” repeatedly. It was used so often it seemed like every. fourth. word.

I’m Catholic and have no idea where this comes from. Prayer is prayer, and serving the hungry is all good, but now that I’ve heard this so many times, I’ve got to wonder, what religion is this derived from? It’s certainly not Catholic. I’ve looked through the posts here and there was one from 2017, but it went unanswered. Someone said it may have been Mormon. A search in google for “Father God” is less than satisfactory.

Any ideas?
 
Not sure, but God is our Father so it could just be people wanting to address God as father. Some people will address God as “Abba Father” or the more informal “Daddy God”. Might just be personal preference.
 
“Father God” was frequently used in the churches of my youth. Mostly African American Baptist, COGIC, and Non denom.
 
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Could be he’s referring to the Father in the Trinity.

Some fringe non-Trinitarian (even non-monotheist) sects believe in a God the Mother in addition to God the Father, so perhaps it’s that.
 
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I heard this quite often when I was younger also. In my experience it was mainly African American churches and ND.
 
The person today was African American but I can’t recall who said them in the past. I want to say the first time I heard it the person was white but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t attend an African American church. So maybe a mix of people from baptist to non denom?
 
JoeFreedom said:
I’ve heard the person saying the prayer say “Father God” repeatedly.
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I learned this when praying with my Southern Baptist Brethren in High School, and also heard it used with Pentecostals, and some Methodists.

God is our Father, and we all agree on that, but Catholics do not use the words “Father God” in prayer. That being said, as a Catholic, I never learned any conversational prayer. I thought Catholics only prayed memorized prayers, and did not learn how to have a conversation with God until the Protestants taught me how. After that, I learned that all the Saints of the Church used both formal prayer and conversational prayers.
 
“Father God” is typically used by Baptists and Evangelicals. It’s just a colloquial way of saying God our Father.

I don’t think it’s a big deal and it doesn’t bother me when they say it. “Father God” is a respectful term for God. Just like “Baby Jesus” is also a respectful term for God.
 
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My wife, who is a very devout Catholic uses “Father God” sometimes when she leads a conversational prayer. My Step son who is some sort of evangelical uses it a lot. I have used it but not often as I am not comfortable with it, but that is just habit.

Patrick
AMDG
 
Pretty sure John calls the first person of the trinity both Father and God all throughout his gospel. Perhaps a little charity is in order here for prayer practices that differ slightly from your own.
 
The reason they say it so much is really quite simple: their prayers tend to be improvised, and “Father God” sounds a lot better than “uuuuhhhhhh.”

Same thing with “Jesus, we just” (or “Jesus weejus”).
 
Given that I repeat the Hail Mary 53 times per rosary, I’m not going to complain about repetitions of “Father God” or “Jesus, we just…”, unless the person saying those things accuses me of “vain repetitions”.

Both repetitions are good, we both knew we got Jesus’ attention the first time we called him.
 
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HopkinsReb said:
The reason they say it so much is really quite simple: their prayers tend to be improvised, and “Father God” sounds a lot better than “uuuuhhhhhh.”

Same thing with “Jesus, we just” (or “Jesus weejus”).
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That’s not a fair characterization of its usage in my experience.

It’s typically used like this: “Father God we thank you” or “We need you, Father God”. I was certainly never taught that it was a substitute for “Uhh”.

The person saying the prayer is simply emphasizing who they are praying to. No more, no less.
 
I didn’t say that that’s the only reason they use it; I said it’s the reason that they say it so much. Some evangelical preachers will literally begin every clause in a prayer with “Father God” or “Jesus, we just pray.”
 
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HopkinsReb said:
I didn’t say that that’s the only reason they use it; I said it’s the reason that they say it so much. Some evangelical preachers will literally begin every clause in a prayer with “Father God” or “Jesus, we just pray.”
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That’s still not the same thing as saying “uhh”.

Its a style of prayer, and it is one that is usually taught or intentionally adopted by the person saying the prayer.
 
Fair enough. Please understand that I’m not mocking them for it – when speaking off the cuff, anybody needs a second to collect his thoughts. I’m simply suggesting that it’s often serving as a filler, and a much better filler than “uhh.”

Ok, I am mocking the “Jesus weejus,” but that’s because of the way it runs together into a fun little rhyme.
 
Hodos said:
Perhaps a little charity is in order here for prayer practices that differ slightly from your own.
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Okay, it’s true, I was annoyed, but not for the reason you might think. I’m fine with anyone saying “Father God”. It was the fact that he kept saying it over and over again. He was speaking so fast that it’s like @HopkinsReb says,
“HopkinsReb said:
The reason they say it so much is really quite simple: their prayers tend to be improvised, and “Father God” sounds a lot better than “uuuuhhhhhh.”
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.

The prayer ended up sounding much like this: Father God, we thank you Father God for being Father God, Father God. Father God bless us Father God, for you Father God, are Father God, that is our Father God. Father God, we worship you O Father God, that you are the Father God. … so on and so forth.

Now honestly, can any of us truly say that if we were talking with someone else, someone else, and that someone else kept saying someone else and repeating, or repeating the same repeated thing that he repeated over again, that someone else repeating himself by repeating himself… wouldn’t sound weird and maybe, JUST maybe, might be irritating?
 
I know what you mean. Other people’s idiosyncrasies can drive us nuts. Just wanted to point it out so that you can recognize when you are doing it and correct your thoughts.
 
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