More on what it means to be a success

In Chapter 4, Platt describes our purpose on earth as "enjoying God's grace, extending God's glory." How does that play into the discussion regarding what it means to be a success?

What if we delineated three definitions of success (admittedly oversimplified)...

a. American dream: Success = living to your fullest potential.

b. Shallow Christian dream: Success = being saved from foolish ways, living a good moral life but not necessarily called to deal with global problems.

c. Platt's Christian dream: Success = being saved from foolish ways and getting to join in God's mission of extending his glory throughout all creation.

I'm feeling called to #3, although the other 2 have been my world view at times in the past.

American dreams and God's dreams

Thanks for all the great comments. I'm looking forward to this as an extension of our Wednesday class.

This past week we talked about the American dream and compared it to God's dream. It was a discussion that gets at our core values - what does it mean to be a success? So here are some follow-up questions...

How do you define success? What does it mean to be a success for most Americans?

How do you know if a church is successful? Kevin Owen (our preacher at College Hills) had interesting thoughts that growth is one indicator, but not the only indicator of a successful church.

How well do our measures of success match up with God's measures (Proverbs 3:1-10 and Revelation 3)?

Welcome to the Conversation

Hello, and welcome to our new blog!

A group of friends are gathering weekly in real life to discuss what we are reading in David Platt's challenging Radical book. Someone suggested adding an online community where we can come together throughout the week and share thoughts on how to live the life Jesus calls us to.

We welcome anyone to comment in!  You may be attending our group or are a friend of a friend or even an onlooker who is curious about this thing we call faith.  We hope this becomes a community where you can be real and ask the hard questions.

Pull up a chair. The coffee is brewing. Let's go around the circle and introduce ourselves!