Discussion question your group will work through:
1.Jackie opens by saying she is not writing primarily for people who used to be gay, but for anyone who has ever loved something more than they loved God. Does that framing expand or narrow your sense of who this book is for? How does it change the way you approach your own reading of it?
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About This Study Guide
Gay Girl, Good God is Jackie Hill Perry's honest, unflinching memoir of growing up fatherless, embracing a lesbian identity with her whole self, and then — at nineteen years old, alone in her bedroom — encountering the living God and being made new. The book's central argument is not that same-sex attraction is a simple problem with a simple fix, but that the gospel is powerful enough to reorient every desire toward its proper end: loving God. Jackie refuses both the therapeutic language of "fixing yourself" and the cheap grace of ignoring sin. Instead, she offers a third way — a costly, joy-filled surrender to a God who is genuinely good, and who calls His people to holiness precisely because He loves them.
This study guide is designed for use in a small group or personal study over ten weeks. Each week, read the assigned chapter (or chapters) before your gathering, then work through the discussion questions — ideally spending time journaling on them before you discuss together. The closing prayers are written to be prayed aloud, alone or as a group, at the end of each session. You do not need a theological degree to use this guide; you need honesty and a willingness to let Jackie's story press on your own.
By the end of this study you will have followed one woman's journey from self-constructed identity to Christ-given identity, and you will have been invited — repeatedly — to ask the same questions she asked: Who is God, really? What does He want from me? And is He good enough to be trusted with everything I am?
10-Week Schedule
- Week 1Introduction — Before We Begin6 questions
- Week 2Part One — The Making of Me7 questions
- Week 3Part Two — The Meeting7 questions
- Week 4The Practicalities of Walking in Newness7 questions
- Week 5Identity — Who Am I, Really?7 questions
- Week 6The Body — Sexuality, Celibacy, and Covenant7 questions
- Week 7The God Who Is Good — Theology for the Struggle7 questions
- Week 8For the Church — How We Treat Each Other7 questions
- Week 9For the Struggler — Hope for the Long Road7 questions
- Week 10Review & Reflection — The Whole Journey8 questions
Week 1: Introduction — Before We Begin
Free sampleRead the Preface and Introduction of Gay Girl, Good God. Key Scripture: Psalm 139:1-18; Romans 1:16
1.Jackie opens by saying she is not writing primarily for people who used to be gay, but for anyone who has ever loved something more than they loved God. Does that framing expand or narrow your sense of who this book is for? How does it change the way you approach your own reading of it?
2.She is direct from the first pages that this is not a "how I stopped being gay" story, but a "how I met God" story. Why does that distinction matter? What would be lost — or distorted — if the book were framed the other way?
3.Jackie writes with the assumption that God is genuinely good — not just powerful, not just morally demanding, but good. Before reading further, where does that assumption feel easy for you to accept, and where does it feel like something you have to convince yourself of?
4.The subtitle signals a tension: "gay girl" and "good God" sit side by side. What assumptions do you carry about how those two things relate — either from the church culture you grew up in or from the broader culture around you?
5.Romans 1:16 describes the gospel as the power of God for salvation. Jackie's whole story turns on this. What does it mean for the gospel to be a power, not merely a message or a set of instructions? How have you experienced — or doubted — that power in your own life?
6.If you are reading this in a group, take a moment to share briefly: what drew you to this book, and what do you hope to walk away with? What are you willing to have challenged?
Week 2: Part One — The Making of Me
Read Part One of Gay Girl, Good God (chapters covering Jackie's childhood, her fatherlessness, and early identity formation). Key Scripture: Psalm 27:10; Genesis 1:27
1.Jackie describes growing up without her father and how that absence left a wound that shaped the way she understood herself as a girl and as a person. How does she connect fatherlessness to her later gender confusion — and how careful is she not to make that a simple cause-and-effect argument?
Week 3: Part Two — The Meeting
Read the section of Gay Girl, Good God covering Jackie's conversion at age nineteen. Key Scripture: Romans 8:29-30; 2 Corinthians 5:17; John 3:3
1.Jackie's conversion did not happen in a church, through a program, or because of contact with Christians — it happened alone in her bedroom, confronted by the truth of the gospel. What does that tell us about how God works, and what does it free us from needing to control about evangelism and conversion?
Week 4: The Practicalities of Walking in Newness
Read the chapters in Gay Girl, Good God covering Jackie's early walk with God after conversion — learning what it meant to live differently. Key Scripture: Romans 6:1-14; Galatians 5:16-25
1.Jackie is honest that after her conversion, same-sex attraction did not simply disappear. What practical decisions did she begin to make — about relationships, environments, and habits — to steward her new life faithfully? What does that kind of deliberate reshaping of life look like in practice?
Week 5: Identity — Who Am I, Really?
Read the chapters in Gay Girl, Good God addressing identity — specifically how Jackie came to understand what it means to be defined by Christ rather than by sexual attraction. Key Scripture: Galatians 2:20; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; Colossians 3:1-4
1.Jackie challenges the label "gay Christian" as a self-identifier — not because same-sex attraction is to be denied or hidden, but because she argues it is a category mistake to make any desire the noun of your identity rather than an adjective describing an experience you have. Do you find that argument compelling? Why or why not?
Week 6: The Body — Sexuality, Celibacy, and Covenant
Read the chapters in Gay Girl, Good God addressing the body, sexuality as a gift, and what faithfulness looks like for someone with same-sex attraction — including Jackie's reflections on her eventual marriage to Preston Perry. Key Scripture: 1 Corinthians 7:1-9; Song of Solomon 1:1-4; Romans 12:1-2
1.Jackie is honest that her eventual marriage to Preston was not a "cure" for same-sex attraction — and she is careful not to present marriage as the goal of obedience or as evidence that the Christian life "worked." Why is that caveat so important? What false hopes could be created without it?
Week 7: The God Who Is Good — Theology for the Struggle
Read the chapters in Gay Girl, Good God that deal most directly with Jackie's theology — her understanding of God's character, holiness, love, and why goodness matters for obedience. Key Scripture: Psalm 34:8; Romans 8:28-32; James 1:17
1.The book's title is a theological statement: "Good God." Jackie argues that the goodness of God is not a background assumption but a conviction you have to fight for and return to again and again. How does the goodness of God function differently than the power of God or the holiness of God as a motivation for obedience?
Week 8: For the Church — How We Treat Each Other
Read the chapters in Gay Girl, Good God addressed to the church — how Christians have gotten this wrong, what faithful love looks like, and what Jackie wishes the church had understood. Key Scripture: Galatians 6:1-2; 1 Corinthians 13:4-7; Romans 15:7
1.Jackie speaks from experience about the ways the church has both helped and harmed people navigating same-sex attraction — sometimes through overt cruelty, sometimes through silence, sometimes through oversimplified solutions. Which failure do you think is most common in the communities you have been part of?
Week 9: For the Struggler — Hope for the Long Road
Read the final chapters of Gay Girl, Good God in which Jackie addresses the reader who is in the middle of the struggle — offering hope, honesty, and the long view of what faithfulness looks like. Key Scripture: Philippians 1:6; Hebrews 12:1-3; Romans 8:18
1.Jackie writes as someone who is further down the road — not at the destination, but not where she started. What is it about a testimony like hers that is more compelling than an argument? What does a lived story offer that a theological treatise cannot?
Week 10: Review & Reflection — The Whole Journey
No new reading this week. Review your notes, journal entries, and any passages that marked you throughout the study.
1.Looking back across the whole book, what is the one idea, story, or sentence that you cannot get out of your head? Why do you think that particular thing landed so deeply?
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