Global Mission Service: What is a Successful Life?
Phil invites us to consider the marks of a successful life as individuals and corporately as a church. He suggests three areas that success can be calibrated against: character, the success of others, and the priorities of Jesus, and encourages us to prayerfully consider whether any areas of our lives need recalibrating.
Life Group Questions
Global Mission Service: What is a Successful Life?
Start with a group discussion. Imagine if, as a life group, you decided to sponsor a new missionary in a country that was highly resistant to the gospel and to Christian missionaries. The missionary you have chosen to sponsor is diligent and hard-working, and after a few months on the ground, they begin sending you quarterly reports outlining how their work is going.
What would some signs of success be?
What would you think if the reports contained evidence of the following:
- The missionary has been assaulted by local people
- They have started a church even though it is illegal in that country
- They are not financially sustainable and are barely scraping by
- Their family and friends have rejected them now that they are working publicly as a Christian missionary.
How would you respond?
Read Luke 14:25-35
What stands out to you in this passage?
What does this teach us about how we are to live?
What is God saying to you today?
What are you going to do about it?
Close with a time of prayer for the persecuted church in India and sub-Saharan Africa.