True Faced: Trust God and Others with Who You Really Are (Colorado Springs: Navpress, 2004), by Bill Thrall, Bruce McNicol, and John Lynch. 159 pages.

If you’re looking for a way to invite longtime Christians into fresh, powerful experiences of grace, this is a wonderful resource. True Faced is a small part of a big new thing God is doing in traditional churches, described by the authors in the book’s introduction: “In astounding and unusual ways, God appears to be revealing to the body of Christ, in this season, the power, healing, and freedom of trust-triggered grace” (p. 7). The study kit comes with a DVD, a leader’s guide, a participant’s book, and a set of 52 True Faced QuEW cards (QuEW stands for Quotes for Each Week). Groups like Sunday School classes and home Bible studies will find the curriculum user-friendly. They can choose their own pace through the material, either 8 or 16 weeks.

Why do we recommend “True Faced” for Church Over 40 e-list subscribers? Because we’ve seen traditional churches become much more effective at outreach and evangelism after their leaders experienced God’s grace in fresh ways. True Faced is addressed to committed Christians, and its message will ring true with longtime church members. We think that a church-wide emphasis on grace is a great way to prepare a traditional church for effective outreach. A sermon series on the topic, coupled with 8-week True Faced small group studies, can create an environment in which people learn to celebrate and share God’s grace. They become more able to embrace newcomers and connect with them in loving, compassionate ways.

True Faced groups meet eight times. The first meeting is an introduction to “The True Faced Experience,” during which the group leader plays the DVD message and invites interested persons to pick up the True Faced book and return a week later to begin the adventure. The next seven weeks are devoted to True Faced’s seven chapters. Chapter One, “Keeping Up Appearances,” critiques the legalistic works-righteousness that blocks our experience of God’s grace. Chapter Two, “To Please or to Trust?” asks participants to choose one of two diverging paths for Christian living. Living to please God leads to feverish attempts at holy living on our own strength, resulting in exhaustion and frustration. Living to trust God enables us to experience grace and renders our lives pleasing to God (Hebrews 11:6). Chapter Three, “Grace Works!” is practical theology. It describes how Christ’s work on the cross deals with human sin and invites us to “become who we already are” in the way apples ripen and caterpillars become butterflies. Chapters Four, Five, and Six describe three wonderful gifts of grace: love, repentance, and forgiveness. The goal is to help people receive love, admit that their powerlessness to overcome sin, and forgive when sinned against. The seventh and final chapter, “Maturing into God’s Dreams for You” tells how Christians mature in three phases: healing the needy Christian, maturing the healing Christian, and releasing the maturing Christian. We love John Lynch’s sermon (on the DVD) for its compelling invitation to live into God’s dream.

The power and promise of True Faced is in the intimacy of the small groups it fosters. Participants learn the importance of high-trust environments. Human beings only risk dropping their masks in relationships of love, trust, and acceptance. The DVD lessons and group meetings do a great job of making this clear to people, and painting a winsome picture of the grace-filled groups and churches. Group members are sub-divided into dyads or triads in which they can, when ready, risk being open and authentic. This is basic Christian community.

Authors Thrall, McNicol, and Lynch are part of Leadership Catalyst, www.leadershipcatalyst.org. They are evangelicals who’ve experienced first-hand the emptiness of sterile church environments that attempt to sanitize away the messiness of life. These churches become crowds of fakers posturing and parading a stiff, graceless version of Christian living. True Faced calls this “The Land of Doing Just Fine,” and exposes it as the result of a form of works-righteousness called “sin management” that is ineffective and unchristian.

We really like True Faced, but would have appreciated more explicit Bible lessons. Group time is devoted largely to sharing personal experiences rather than Bible study. No one is likely to complain about this, since most of us are far more interested in ourselves than Scripture. But the grace in which we stand is revealed in Scripture, and that connection should be crystal clear. Hopefully, pastors and group leaders will draw from the deep well of biblical resources so that participants’ understanding of grace is enriched by both personal experience (the futility of trying to manage sin for ourselves) and revealed truth (the finished work of Christ on the cross and its implications).

Grace is a good thing! People who revel in the exhilarating freedom of Christian living can be found in growing churches. Their joy is contagious; that is why their churches grow. We encourage you to teach grace and invite people to experience more of it through studies like “True Faced.” And while we do not recommend these activities as means to the end of effective outreach, that will be an inevitable effect of your church’s revived appreciation for the Good News of the Gospel.

Rev. Fred Oaks
Church Over 40