How Has Grace Influenced You?

Summary

Podcast Summary: Living Influence with Bill Thrall and Scott Boyd
Episode: How Has Grace Influenced You?
Date: November 13, 2025
Hosts: Bill Thrall & Scott Boyd

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Overview

In this poignant and personal episode, Bill Thrall and Scott Boyd explore the deeply transformative power of grace—how discovering and embracing grace has influenced their personal lives, leadership styles, and communities. They share stories highlighting how believing in the God-given intrinsic value of oneself and others can impact business, faith communities, and relationships. Listeners are encouraged to recognize and extend this same grace—rooted in Jesus—toward themselves and those around them.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Grace as a Personal Transformation (00:03–02:18)

• Scott’s Journey:
  • Scott shares how his upbringing made him a “doing guy,” finding value in achievement and always feeling like an underachiever.
  • Discovering grace in Galatians, he begins to risk believing “the Creator of the universe is in me.”
    • “Wait a second. That's like having a super calculator with you... it can just tell you, you should do X, you should do A.” (Scott, 00:46)
  • This realization leads him to feel special, loved, and to start believing in himself—not because of accomplishment, but because “God had made me special.”
  • As he started to believe in his own value, he started to believe in others as well.

2. Implementing Grace in the Workplace (02:19–05:00)

• Trusting Employees from Day One:

  • At Scott’s company, QuesTec, every new hire is greeted with trust, not suspicion.
    • “We were going to believe in them and we were going to trust them from the get go.” (Scott, 02:24)
  • This trust changed employees’ attitudes, fostering ownership and commitment.
  • Some potential hires found this level of trust uncomfortable, but it built a unique culture.
  • QuesTec outperformed competitors, and employees grew into “amazing leaders... amazing people of influence.”

• Success Rooted in Grace:

  • The company maintained profitability even in downturns, chalked up to lowered costs and empowered people.
    • “I couldn’t quantify the difference, but I just know there was a difference." (Scott, 04:26)

3. Grace in Ministry & Community (05:36–14:17)

• Bill’s Early Ministry and Hippies:

  • Bill recounts their outreach to young adults during the hippie movement.
  • Initial judgments rooted in “sin management” theology gave way to grace as God showed him the potential in unconventional people.
    • “By God’s grace, I saw value and potential... It’s one of my core convictions—the significance of each one.” (Bill, 07:38)
  • This led to founding Open Door Fellowship after traditional churches literally shut the door on their group.

• Radical Commitment & Church Community:

  • The group made a five-year, mutual commitment of love and support.
    • “We made a commitment to each other that we would be available to each other and none of us would leave this union for five years.” (Bill, 09:41)
  • All 15 honored the commitment, many stayed even longer, forming the foundation of Open Door Fellowship.
  • The ethos: focus on what the church is “for,” not what it’s “against.”

4. Principles & Practices of Grace (14:17–19:27)

• Non-Judgmental Culture:

  • Scott’s company skips annual employee reviews; instead, annual meetings are for employees to share their dreams.
    • “Would you trust me enough to tell me what the dreams are that you have for your career?” (Scott, 15:31)
  • 401k plans are immediately vested—no “golden handcuffs.” Departures for better opportunities are celebrated. Returning is always welcome.
    • “If you leave because you’ve got a better opportunity, we are going to celebrate that with you.” (Scott, 17:18)

• Supporting Individual Visions:

  • Bill’s church supports the visions/dreams of its members rather than enforcing a single institutional vision.
  • Many ministries were launched from this supportive environment, including Randy Thompson Ministries.

• Empowerment Through Grace:

  • Both agree that grace means believing in the possibilities of God in people.
    • “Grace does something. It doesn’t just believe in people. It believes in the possibilities of people. It believes in the possibilities of God in people.” (Bill, 18:08)

5. Grace Expands, Sin Management Shrinks (19:27–20:22)

• Broader Implications:
  • Sin management “lessens, it minimizes,” whereas grace “expands.”
    • “The early church changed the world...because they had a simple message. Jesus is alive. We know Him. We met Him. We'd like you to know him...and it changed the world.” (Bill, 19:42)
  • Bill bemoans how religion complicates things, when grace is simple and rooted in relationship with Jesus.
    • “What is grace? Grace is a person. His name is Jesus.” (Bill, 20:12)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “As I began to believe that God had made me special, I began to believe in myself because I had God in me. Not because of my effort, not because of my doing.” (Scott, 01:39)
• “Grace is something you never have to sell. Grace is something you always give away.” (Bill, 11:33)
• “We made a commitment to each other that we would be available to each other and none of us would leave this union for five years.” (Bill, 09:44)
• “Sin management does something. It lessens, it minimizes. Grace expands.” (Bill, 19:39)
• “What is grace? Grace is a person. His name is Jesus.” (Bill, 20:12)
• "If you leave because you’ve got a better opportunity, we are going to celebrate that with you." (Scott, 17:18)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:03: Introduction & setting up the theme: “How has grace influenced you?”
• 00:46–02:18: Scott’s transformation from seeking value in doing to resting in grace.
• 02:19–05:00: Trusting employees and the effect on QuesTec’s culture and performance.
• 06:10–10:11: Bill discusses grace in early ministry and the commitment foundational to Open Door Fellowship.
• 11:33: “Grace is something you always give away.”
• 15:20–17:26: Annual meetings focused on employee dreams, immediate 401k vesting, and celebration of staff transitions.
• 17:57–19:12: Supporting the dreams/visions of church members.
• 19:39–20:22: Grace versus sin management; grace as a person—Jesus.
• 20:23–20:34: Concluding affirmation: “Jesus makes all the difference.”

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Tone & Takeaways

The tone is warm, reflective, and candid, marked by genuine gratitude for the role of grace in their lives. The conversation balances vulnerability and anecdote with practical wisdom—demonstrating how radical grace transforms leadership, community, and individual lives by fostering trust, empowerment, and unconditional value.

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Summary:
Scott and Bill illustrate, through personal stories and leadership examples, that real change happens when we embrace grace—seeing and championing the God-given potential within ourselves and others, rather than viewing life through the limiting lens of achievement or sin management. Grace is portrayed not as a theological concept, but a lived, relational reality—ultimately rooted in Jesus.

Transcript

[A]

How have you been influenced by grace? Welcome to Living Influence. We've been doing this series on what's influenced us, how has God influenced us? How others influenced us? Last week we talked about how sin management influenced us. Right. We thought it'd be appropriate to end on this series of how has grace influenced you?

[B]

Amen.

[A]

I gotta have a story to tell you about my business and how grace has influenced my company. I've talked about how growing up I was, How I was influenced and I was this doing guy, and that my value came out of what I did. And if I did it well and if I did enough of it. One of the results in my life from that was I've always felt like an underachiever, which is a bit. People laugh at me when I tell them that, my friends. But. But when I began to discover grace in Galatians and I began to take risk that maybe this grace is true, what if Christ is actually in my heart? The Lord Jesus Christ is in my heart. The creator of the universe is in me. Wait a second. That's like having a super calculator with you that figures stuff out, or that doesn't even have to figure it out. It can just tell you, you should do X. You should do a. But what it did for me, I began to believe. Just like when my grandpa made me feel special, I began to believe that God made me feel special.

[B]

Amen.

[A]

And as I began to believe that God had made me special, I began to believe in myself because I had God in me. Not because of my effort, not because of my doing. I'd done those experiments and found them to fail and to fall short. But trusting that God was in me and beginning to risk that that might be true began to cause me to feel loved and caused me to believe in myself, which had a really interesting fruit. It caused me to believe in other people too.

[B]

Amen.

[A]

It's like, okay, so at questac, if you were offered a job, it was a given that we were going to believe in you when you came to work for us. And that was going to look like we were going to trust you. Now a lot of people would go, but don't you trust them when they earn your trust? And it was like, no, no, we're going to believe in them and we're going to trust them from the get go. And what I found when I did that, it actually affected how they showed up. They were able to show up differently than if they were in an environment where they weren't trusted. If they were in an environment where they had to prove that they were trustworthy. But no, all of a sudden, we're trusting them. And interestingly enough, not everybody can handle that. There are people that go, that's above my pay grade. I don't want to be there, and I don't want to work for your crazy company. You expect too much. Which was strange, because, wait, we're believing in you, and that's too much. We began to have this culture where we believed in people and we trusted them and we empowered them, and they began to own what they were doing. And. And I don't think it made their jobs easier because now they cared about their job. And so with it, you know, they carried stress. For me, what happened was we outpaced all of our competitors. When the market would turn down and our competitors would be losing money to keep their people working, we would be just making less money, but we would still make money because our costs were lower than anybody else's. I couldn't quantify the difference, but I just know there was a difference. And not only that, the people that we believed in, over time, they developed, I mean, into amazing leaders, amazing people of influence, amazing people at the craft that they had and the skill that they used in it. And it just was like. And so for me, it's been this fabulous journey of how grace has transformed my company. My story is, as we've grown to be a bigger and bigger company, I talk to a lot of business owners, and they're like, going, oh, people. It's the biggest headache. The people are terrible. It's like. It's not been the case for me. As we've grown, I've actually gained more time. I mean, it's amazing. Grace is amazing.

[B]

Thank you, Scott.

[A]

And it really works.

[B]

It's a great story. It begins again. It's so interesting. It begins in you being influenced.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And then that influence of grace in you, you were able to see in people with people who don't understand grace would never see and couldn't see and couldn't trust.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And I know they would want to wave red flags in front of you. You can't do that. Can't do that. They're going to rob you. They're going to steal from you. They're going to. Maybe one or two of them did. Who knows? Yeah, but.

[A]

Been stolen from. But.

[B]

But that wasn't the point.

[A]

Wasn't.

[B]

It wasn't the poem. Grace and I, my wife and I, we're all about seeing young adults come to Christ.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And we're doing everything we can to evangelize and thank God for that. And then the hippie movement hits America. Phoenix happens to be a warm place. And hippie showed up from everywhere. And all of a sudden our young adult group are hippies. I told you, all of you, about the experience of leading Mel, the Jewish young man, to Christ and his showing up and saying, well, what do we do now?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And. And what happened was I had. Out of my background and my theology, I had a preset judgment off from the sin management. Absolutely right. And God did something. I. I say it to a lot of people. I was experiencing grace. I codified it long before even knew.

[A]

What the word was.

[B]

I even taught it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But I was experiencing in these relationships where, like you and your employees, I was seeing an amazing possibility in these young hippie adults. Bernie Rolf, who was an amazing musician, formed these rock and roll bands and they were the expression of our outreach. And these were ex rock and roll guys that still use drugs and were tattooed. And they're part of my ministry. And I'm going, okay, welcome, I guess. Welcome, I hope. And what happened was by God's grace, I saw value. And by the way, I still see. Wasn't something I saw then. I still see it. Yeah, by God's grace, I saw value and potential. And one of the essentials we wrote early on was this essential. I live by it. The significance of each one.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's. It's one of my core convictions, which.

[A]

Includes the significance of you.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Thank you. Right.

[B]

Thanks for saying. Of course.

[A]

Right.

[B]

How can they be significant? They're hippies. They don't work. They live in trailers. They live with girls and guys mixed up. And they don't. I mean, no, they're significant. So one Sunday morning, we send a bunch of. My head of us to this large church and. And they wouldn't let them in because they were. The girls weren't mostly clothed. I never did understand why the girls didn't wear underwear. But that was hippie movement. And, and, and the boys had long hair. The church would not let them in. And we came right into this place right where we are. We sat on the floor here and. And we went. I guess we're gonna have to form a church. I'm a CPA guy. What's a little church? But. But this is part of the story I thought was so interesting. We bought some butcher paper and we lined this wall right here. It's all full of windows. And we put butcher paper up and we decided we were going to make a list of what church should be. And on this butcher paper, we discovered almost accidentally that it was much easier to write what church shouldn't be.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so we had a long list. We were laughing. It was a lot of fun. We were on the floor here and we were all laughing. And then we said, well, wait, what should church be? The first thing we wrote was, the church should be a place where we are loved. And it caused us in that group that day to look at each other. And we did something that surprises a lot of people. We looked at each other and we made a commitment of love to each other. Right. That all 15 of us. And we extended it into these words. I've never had this experience before, except with my wife, where we made a commitment to each other that we would be available to each other and none of us would leave this union for five years.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

And it was the foundation of Open Door Fellowship. Open Door Fellowship's name is kind of interesting because we just come from a church where the door was not open, it was closed. So it was easy to name the church. We just. First thing, we'd Open Door Fellowship. But that five year commitment, it was such an experience of grace for all of us because all 15 people honored it. Everybody was there five years.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And. And most of us extended it another five. Now, I want to pause for a minute and just add to this theme, but I think we've lost God, the power of commitment. I think we've lost it. When church is a place where I go to get something, a message or whatever.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Instead of a place where I go to be with someone.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We made it a place where we went to be with each other and we made a commitment to each other.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We honored the commitment that we made. And I knew that in my spirit that I was experiencing something I'd never experienced before. I can now call it grace. Because I knew this. I know now that's what it was.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We wrote these essentials, these things that we believed would give our church. And it was so interesting. One of our essentials coming out of what church shouldn't be was that we were for not against. It's one of our convictions for not against. So we did not even try to decide what other churches were doing that was wrong.

[A]

Just avoided that.

[B]

It wasn't our business.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We didn't try to do anything except we were for something. And what that did for us is that gave us the hope in a message that was worth sharing because watch carefully. Because grace is something you never have to sell. Grace is something you always give away. You always give it away. So we're for grace, but we're not against. And again, I don't say this next statement because I'm some super saint. I just want to say this. God, I haven't had an argument about theology in 30, 40 years. I have no interest in arguing with anybody about theology. What I'd like to do is I'd like to share with you some things I think I'm learning about Jesus Christ and the significance of his work. I'd like to share some things with you that I'm learning about grace, but I'm not going to try to sell you anything. Yeah, and, and I'm not going to fight you over whatever. Now, what that did for this young group, it stabilized us because we began to discover what we were for. And once we began to discover what we were for, we began to figure out ways to share it. And our ministry, it literally exploded. I don't know. Best way to say that. We had, we had concerts on Friday and Saturday night with wall. We bought an old Church of God building and we had wall to wall kids sharing Christ. And this was our theory. It didn't work, but this was our theory. You know, we'd say to youth pastors and youth leaders all over the valley, bring. And then if they come to Christ, we'll send them back to your church. That was our theory. It's a great theory.

[A]

Right.

[B]

We, we were going to honor that, except they didn't want to go back. Except that the kids who were coming to Christ didn't want to go back to those places. They wanted to be with us.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And, and we weren't prepared for that, Scott. Yeah, we weren't prepared for that. We weren't prepared for the number of people who came to Christ. Today at church, I pointed a guy out to you. Yeah, he was one of those hippies.

[A]

Yeah, his name is.

[B]

Had the weirdest beard you've ever seen. It wasn't full, it was just long, straggly, from several places, long hair, lived in a trailer park with some other hippies, including some girls and another guy and I, one of the 15. We went to see Sam one day and you know, I'm. I'm already now at the ripe old age of 30.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The guy that's with me is 25 maybe. We go to this trailer park and it's an abandoned trailer park. There's living there. They broke into all these old trailers and that's where they're living. And we knock on the door, to my surprise, and two beautiful, young, naked girls come to the door. My gosh. Can we help you? Is Sam here?

[A]

No.

[B]

You want to come in? Oh, you can't believe how much I do. But no, we're gonna. We're gonna. We're gonna look for him somewhere. El you very much. I say that story just because the freedom that you have when you trust God with yourself and you trust God with his purposes in your life, and you trust God with what is potentially possible in others.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

There's a spirit of non judgment. I heard you say it in your. I've watched you do it. Scott, in your business, your employees do not get judged. Tell us about the fact you don't even do an annual. What?

[A]

Yeah, we don't do annual reviews. I mean, it's like, how can you.

[B]

Be successful if you don't do annual reviews? I know there's gotta. What do you mean? You got to do annual reviews? It's not how you measure them.

[A]

It's how you get people to be better, is to measure them and tell them where they missed it and where they could get better. And it's like. So I hated annual reviews. It was. In most companies, it's just a farce, something that you have to do because HR makes you do it. I'm like, we're not doing that. Our reviews. We had an annual meeting with our employees. And here was my goal in that annual meeting. Would you trust me enough to tell me what the dreams are that you have for your career? Because if they didn't trust me, they wouldn't tell me.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

But if they would tell me, we would figure out if it were possible for those dreams to happen for them in your company. In our company.

[B]

Amen.

[A]

We would look for ways to get them on the right seat of the bus for them. And, you know, we had mistakes and misfires. Oh, I'd love to do this. I'd love to do this design work.

[B]

All right.

[A]

You know, and comes in and six months later, man, this is killing me. Can I go back to the field? Of course you can. We became so for our people, and I resisted any form of manipulation when I set up my 401k plan. And, you know, the 401k people say, well, you should have a vesting period, because it becomes like this golden handcuffs, and they'll have to stay for the money. And I'm like, I don't want them to stay if they don't want to be here. No, I don't want that. So let's just. No vesting.

[B]

Amen.

[A]

You're 100 vested. The moment we put some money in your 401k, it's yours. And if you leave, you take it with you. You take it with you. And if you leave because you've got a better opportunity, we are going to celebrate that with you.

[B]

Amen.

[A]

Because we're for you.

[B]

That's grace.

[A]

We wanted to be for people.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And if they left and it didn't work out, we would welcome them back. And many of them did. Grace has affected all the corners.

[B]

Amen. And very similar, but in different context.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

One of the things that we decided that open door fellowship, we would not have a vision for the church.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What we decided was that we would support the visions of people in our church.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That was our goal.

[A]

That was your goal.

[B]

And in the early days of our church, there were so many ministries that blossom out of that all over the city today.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Now, again, just like with you, Grace does something. It doesn't just believe in people. It believes in the possibilities of people. It believes in the possibilities of God in people. It believes their ability to trust the God who sees their possibilities.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And just real quickly, one. One ministry that started was Randy Thompson Ministries. And Randy wanted. He's a. He was a musician. I've never met anyone more naive when it comes to business than Randy. Oh, my gosh. And for him to form a ministry. Oh, I still laugh at my spirit, but it flourished for years. But, oh, gosh, did he not know what to do? That wasn't the point. The point is you use the word dream.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What is their dream? We use the word vision. Imagine the hope that a community in a business and in a church creates in people.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Where they're known, where they're valued, where they can dream, where their dreams are validated, where their dreams are put into action, into motion. And the possibilities, those are all the fruits of grace.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I don't want to end with a negative. I just want to say this. When we talked about sin management, Sin management does something. It lessens, it minimizes.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Grace expands.

[A]

It does.

[B]

The early church changed the world, not because they had a great strategic plan, but they had a simple message. Jesus is alive. We know Him. We met Him. We'd like you to know him. We'd like you to meet him. And it changed the world. Now, I say that because that. That has never changed.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That's the same thing that changes the world.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Shame on all of our religionists.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That creates all of these dynamics. No, no, just make it more simple. What is grace? Grace is a person. His name is Jesus.

[A]

Yeah, that's beautiful.

[B]

And he's given me the privilege of knowing him.

[A]

Yeah. And it makes all the difference.

[B]

Amen.

[A]

Amen. Jesus makes all the difference.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Yeah. It's a good place to end, wouldn't you say?

[B]

I think so.

[A]

Gosh, we hope you've enjoyed this series that we. That we're on of. How have you been influenced? How's God influenced you? How have other people influenced you? How have life circumstances influenced you? How's sin management or your theology influenced you? And probably the most important to us, reason we're all about this is how has grace influenced you? Because it's influenced us in dramatic ways and it's why we want to share it with you. Thanks for being here on Living Influence, and we hope to see you next week.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Thank you for listening to the podcast. We're really glad that you're here. We'd love to know that you. You're here, and so if you could leave a comment, we would appreciate that. But more importantly, if you know someone that should listen to this or hear it, we would love for you to share it with them. Thanks again.