Week 4: Chapter 3 — The Stained Glass Curtain

1.Yancey introduces the metaphor of a "stained glass curtain" — the barrier that the church sometimes erects between the grace it proclaims and the world outside its doors. What does he mean by that image? Have you ever felt that barrier, either from inside or outside the church?

2.He shares stories of people who were wounded by the church — rejected, shamed, or judged — rather than welcomed and healed. What patterns of behavior tend to create those wounds? Are they ever deliberate, or are they usually the unintended consequences of something else?

3.Yancey makes a distinction between the church being "in the world" versus the church becoming "of the world." How does an obsessive fear of contamination by the world cause the church to withdraw precisely when it should be engaging? What is lost when Christians retreat behind the stained glass?