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?

4.Yancey describes grace as the church's "last best word" and its one great distinctive. What does he mean by that? What would a church that truly trafficked in grace look and feel like, compared to the churches most of us have experienced?

5.The introduction introduces the concept of "ungrace" — the default human tendency toward merit, grudges, and conditional love. Where do you see ungrace operating most powerfully in your own life right now?

6.Yancey says he writes as a "pilgrim" on the subject of grace, not as someone who has mastered it. How does that posture shape the way you approach this study? What would it mean for your group to journey through this book as fellow pilgrims rather than as experts?

7.How does the gospel — the announcement that God justifies the ungodly (Romans 4:5) — connect to everything Yancey is setting up in these opening pages? In what sense is grace not just a theme in Christianity but its very core?