EDGE Autumn 2007 – In but not of… #4

The culture of celebrity / success

Welcome

Offer everyone a drink / snack

This is a simple ‘complete the sentence’ activity that gets people thinking about the theme of success.

Start by inviting people to talk about how their week has been. You could ask them to complete the sentence: ‘The highlight of my week was…’ or ‘The worst bit of my week was…’ Go round the group asking everyone how they would complete these sentences.

Then move onto these unfinished sentences:

‘Someone I think is very successful is… because…’
‘When I’m thirty I want to be…’
‘An example of success in my life is when…’
‘An example of failure in my life is when…’
‘People want to be successful because…’

‘One of the problems of success is…’

 

- good icebreaker that gets people thinking about the theme of the session.

 

Word

Ask the group to imagine themselves aged 30 and having achieved a position of power and influence in an area of their choosing – e.g. someone might be a famous author, another person might be a successful film star, another might be playing football for England, another might be running a development agency that is making a real difference to people in poverty. Give them a minute or two to think about what they would like to have achieved.

Then ask them to imagine that God comes to them and says, ‘I’ll give you anything you want – just ask me.’ What would they then ask him in response? Get them to write this down on a piece of paper. You could ask them to tell you what they have written, but don’t set them up to look selfish or foolish compared to what they find out about Solomon in a few minutes!

Find three people to read out aloud the passages below that tell some of Solomon’s story. There are some questions to discuss after the first two passages.

Read 1 Kings 3:5-15 and 1 Kings 4:29-34.

Discuss with the group:

· Would you say that Solomon is a successful king? In what ways?

· God was pleased that Solomon had asked for wisdom. What do you think someone has to do for them to be judged successful by God? How is this different to the way society generally judges success?

· What do you think was Solomon’s priority in life? How important was money, fame and power to him?

· Think about how what Solomon asked for compared to what you asked God for in the imaginary scenario above. Does this story make you want to change your mind?

Then get someone to read 1 Kings 11:1-6.

Discuss with the group:

· Solomon started well, but ended badly. Where did he go wrong?

· How could he have handled his success better and avoided this? 

· Do you think God wants us to be successful? In what ways?

· Think back to your imaginary scenario at the start. What are the ways that someone in that position might handle success badly? How could you make sure that you handled it well?

· Look again at how Solomon handled his success: what we can learn from him.

 

Read Matthew 20:20-28 together. (When Jesus says, ‘Are you able to drink from the cup that I must drink form soon?’ he was talking about the suffering that he was going to have to go through soon.)

Discuss with the group:

- What does Jesus say they need to do if they want to be great? This seems to be the opposite of what happens in real life – why does he say this?

- Think about whether Jesus was successful in his life. How might someone have answered that question the day after he was crucified? How might a Christian answer that question today?

- What can we learn from Jesus’ approach to success?

 

Worship

Worship Jesus for his successful life: a life full of service, suffering, obedience and one of complete success!

 

Witness

Pray for one another. Pray protection against the need to be worldly successful, and pray protection so that if you do become successful in eyes of the world you will keep your eyes fixed on Jesus and his definition of success.