Chapters 1-4

Welcome to the Bookclub! We're so excited to finally meet all you fabulous women and introduce this semester's reading selection, The Shack. Each meeting will focus on a specific reading (see the schedule to the side). We'll use the following discussion questions to help guide our time together, but please feel free to bring your own questions, ideas, opinions, responses, etc. to our get-togethers. This can be a challenging book, but stick with it. (You may find "The Great Sadness" particularly hard to read, but I PROMISE it gets easier!).

I encourage you to really engage with the book; mark it up, write notes in the margin, and then bring all of that wonderful insight to our meeting. You never know how your understanding and perspective might be just what someone else is needing to hear.

Okay, so here are our first set of discussion questions. YOU DO NOT NEED TO PREPARE ANSWERS FOR ANY OF THESE! They are simply a way to get us all thinking about the same questions / topics.

The Foreword and “A Confluence of Paths”

1. The Shack is considered “theological fiction.” Do you find that to be a contradiction of terms? Can art, creativity, and theology be intermixed?

The Forward.

1. Mack is described as “not very religious” and as having a “love/hate relationship with Religion” (10). Why is religion capitalized? Do we tend to worship / love religion rather than God Himself? How would you describe your relationship with religion?

2. “While Mack’s relationship with God is wide, Nan’s is deep” (11). How would you describe your relationship with God? What does it mean to have a wide versus a deep relationship with Him?

3. Compare the ice storm (15) to Romans 1:19-20 (The Message):"But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can't see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being."How could Mack's understanding of who God is have changed if he had considered God in what he saw in the snow and ice storm? What things did he see in the ice storm that he could have seen was true about God?

4. Chapter 1, “A Confluence of Paths,” hinges on Mack’s invitation to meet “Papa” at the very place of his greatest suffering. Do we each have an invitation? How did Mack react to his? How have you reacted to yours?

5. Have you ever noticed that an invitation to pain (often deep pain) is also an invitation to grace (consider the story of Job)? Have you ever experienced this?

6. What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. –A.W. Tozier. “Papa was Nan’s favorite name for God and it expressed her delight in the intimate friendship she had with him” (22). What does Nan’s name for God reveal about their relationship? What name / term comes to mind when you think of God? What might that reveal about your relationship with God?

7. “Finally, he gave up, folded the note, slid it into a small tin box he kept on the desk, and switched off the light” (22). What might be the significance of the tin box? Do you have any metaphorical tin boxes? What do you store away there?

“The Gathering Dark” and “The Tipping Point”

1. At the end of the chapter, Mack talks to Missy about the Multnomah princess story (27-28), which leads into a discussion of God. Who do you feel better understands the nature of God, Mack or Missy? With whom do you most relate?

2. “Then how come [God’s] so mean?” (31). Why is it sometimes easier to see God as anything but a loving Papa? What influences distort our understanding of God?

3. “The Gathering Dark” makes reference to the events in our life that change our relationship with God. In the book, a simple camping trip sets up events that forever change Mack and his relationship with God. What are the events in your life that have led you to where you are in your relationship with God?

4. “[Nan] even calls him Papa because of the closeness of their relationship…It just seems a little too familiar for me. Anyway, Nan has a wonderful father, so I think it’s just easier for her” (37-38). To what extent do your relationships with your parents, particularly your relationship with your father, affect your understanding of God?

5. The author uses an interesting play on words in the title for this chapter, “The Tipping Point.” Tipping refers to the canoe tipping, as well as the tipping point in a faith walk. The event of losing Missy starts a long process of Mack addressing his relationship with God. Have you experienced a tipping point?