Week 1: Preface & Introduction — A World Starving for Grace

1.Yancey opens the book with the story of a young woman who had been used and discarded and then asks a church for help — only to be turned away. How did that story land on you when you first read it? What does it reveal about the gap between what the church is called to be and what it sometimes becomes?

2.Yancey says that when he asked a cynical friend what he thought of Christians, the friend replied that Christians are known more for what they are against than for what they are for. Do you think that is a fair assessment? Why or why not?

3.The author defines grace as God's love freely given to the undeserving — a love that cannot be earned and cannot be lost. Has that ever felt like genuinely good news to you, or has it mostly remained an abstract doctrine? What makes grace hard to receive personally?