Week 1: Introduction — The Ragamuffin Gospel

1.Manning opens by describing a Christianity that has become obsessed with performance, appearances, and moral scorekeeping. Does that description resonate with your experience of church, or your own inner life? Where do you see it most clearly?

2.The word 'ragamuffin' is Manning's term for the broken, bedraggled, and imperfect — in other words, all of us. How does that label sit with you? Does it feel like an insult, a relief, or something else?

3.Manning suggests that many believers assent to grace intellectually but cannot seem to receive it personally. What is the difference between believing in grace as a doctrine and actually living as a recipient of grace? Where do you fall on that spectrum?

4.Why do you think the gospel of grace — the message that God loves us unconditionally — is so difficult for so many people to actually believe and live from?

5.Read Luke 15:11-32. The prodigal son rehearses a little speech — he will offer himself as a servant, not a son. The father never lets him finish. What does that detail reveal about the nature of the grace Manning wants to describe?

6.Manning is famously honest about his own failures and his alcoholism throughout this book. Even in the introduction, his vulnerability sets a tone. How does an author's willingness to be honest about their own brokenness affect the way you receive their message about grace?

7.What do you hope to take away from this study? What would it mean for your daily life if you came to believe more deeply in the 'furious love' Manning describes?