My First Accountability Group
I remember my first accountability group well. Unfortunately, for all the wrong reasons! I bet many of you can relate.
The church I attended during the mid-90s had just held a men’s conference and strongly encouraged all of the men to sign up for an accountability group where we could be gut-level honest with its other members. I was selected as a leader and remember wondering to myself how I was going to pull off leading a group of guys toward honesty and transparency without being honest and transparent myself.
I had done a great job meticulously managing my reputation and I wasn’t about to blow it by being honest now.
The church assigned five of the conference attendees to my accountability group, and we met about two weeks later at a local coffee shop.
I knew most of the guys only in passing and our first accountability group meeting was pretty awkward. All of us had deep dark secrets and feared just how honest we were going to be required to be. I spent most of the first meeting covering logistical information about the group: when we would meet, where we would meet, and what material we would be going through.
Then I pulled out the questions.
This Is Accountability?
If you have ever been a part of a men’s accountability group, you know exactly what questions I am referring to. The ones that start with “Have you spent time with God every day this week?” and always end with “Have you been truthful in answering all of these questions?”
Our meeting went from awkward to downright uncomfortable.
Every list of questions I have ever seen that were written to be used in this context deal with intimate matters of the heart. Questions about personal finances, lustful thoughts, integrity, spiritual growth, and our relationship with our spouse.
Asking these personal questions outside the context of an intimate, trusting relationship most often leads to manipulation and legalistic, moral policing of another’s behavior rather than to a deeper walk with Jesus.
Our attempt at accountability felt awkward and contrived.
My accountability group lasted about six months as one-by-one the guys gradually quit coming.
Most men’s accountability groups sprang up out of the Promise Keepers movement of the early 90s. Promise #2 of Promise Keepers is:
A Promise Keeper is committed to pursuing vital relationships with a few other men, understanding that he needs brothers to help him keep his promises.
So how did the admonishment to “pursue vital relationships with other men” get dumbed down to meeting with other men and asking a series of probing questions about behavior? Have you ever wondered why women have fellowship groups and men have accountability groups? I’m not sure I have ever even heard of an accountability group for women.
I think the answer lies in the fact that as men, we tend to be very formulaic in our approach to life. We need a way to keep score. When we hear “pursue vital relationships with other men” and have no real experience at connecting at an emotional level with others, the best we can come up with is a list of questions to help keep our behavior in check.
Googling “Christian accountability,” I uncovered hundreds of articles that gave Biblical evidence of the need for men’s accountability. Taking a closer look at the verses that each article referenced, I realized that most of the verses were calling us to fellowship and genuine community, not accountability.
Biblical Accountability Is the Way
So is accountability not important? Of course it is. But true, Biblical accountability is a by-product of genuine, transparent community. It was never intended to be “stand-alone.”
Accountability that is not grace-centered and that is done outside the context of authentic community will always seek to serve the legalistic Pharisee in us all.
We must come together and connect at our weaknesses and not spend time and energy trying to impress others with our strengths.
We must look for opportunities to call each other UP to who we were meant to be in Christ and not call each other OUT for our shortcomings.
My propensity to hide and isolate is in direct proportion to how much I struggle to believe the Gospel. When I’m not believing the Gospel, my focus shifts back to me and my need to pretend I am better than I am [read that again–because it applies to all of us!].
But actively engaging men who know me as I really am and not as I would like to be provides an environment where my secrets are exposed. This is more in line with the “vital relationships” mentioned in Promise Keepers’ second promise. When we do this, God uses community in our lives to bubble up our own sin. The closer and more intimate we are in relation to others, the harder it becomes for us to appear to have it all together.
Which gets at the heart of why most of us don’t have genuine, authentic community—we don’t want to be exposed. The reason we don’t want to be exposed is because at our core, we don’t believe God loves us exactly as we are.
Luke Gilkerson, in his fantastic e-book Your Brain on Porn, emphasizes the vital importance of engaging in authentic community as we seek to successfully avoid pornography and other forms of sexual sin. Luke distinguishes what he calls “responsive accountability” that is motivated by love from the moral policing that often accompanies men’s accountability groups.
So what about you? Are you attempting to do “stand-alone” accountability in your life? How has that worked? In what ways do you shy away from genuine, transparent community and why? If you have a group, have you taken the vital step to also protect yourself when you’re not with your group? I rely on Covenant Eyes, and you should too [sign up today!].
I agree that accountability that is legalistic, forced and not done in safe and supportive environment is doomed to fail. I see three main types of accountability. Cop accountability which is similar to what you describe here where the cop takes a “gotcha!” legalistic approach to the person being held accountability. There is also coach accountability where the coach tries to be very positive and encouraging and finally there is cardiac accountability where the person gets to heart level issues and matters with the person being held accountable. This gets at the underlying things that manifest with symptoms of acting out (porn, masturbation, affairs, etc.) The key with accountability is not just focusing on the symptoms which is how the person acted out (cop and coach) but to get to the underlying root issues or causes that were behind the acting out (cardiac). Check out some helpful men’s accountability group resources at: http://www.mymensgroup.net/accountability-resources.html which includes the excerpt that describes the three types of accountability that I mention above.
Traylor, thanks for the response. I noticed the difference you mentioned in “Porn-Free Church” (which is what I meant when I said “your” book, but it’s really a collection of articles)… chapter 8 is pretty much just a pragmatic / rational argument about how men can get together with little or no mention of the Gospel, but chapter 9 I felt was very gospel centered.
Thanks! Tim
Hi Tim. The book was not meant to be taken as merely a collection of article, but as carefully compiled resources, each stressing a different emphasis. David Dusek’s chapter (chapter 8) was written with a very pragmatic focus in mind, and he wrote it knowing about the rest of the content. Similarly, my chapter (chapter 9) was added primarily to bring a gospel-centered perspective to friendships. Those chapters were grouped together in order to offer both pragmatic approaches to community structures and a biblical vision for friendship.
Hey Tim!
I think the crux of Tullian’s post on accountability groups can be summed up by this statement…
“The tragic irony in all of this is that when we focus so strongly on our need to get better, we actually get worse.”
The points he makes about accountability groups that flow out of the behavior modification paradigm instead of deeper surrender to the Gospel are right on. In our groups, we use the metaphor of a tree where each branch represents a type of sexual sin. Rather than trying to find sharper saws to remove branches of behavior, we help men bring the Gospel to the deep, root issues and wounds that are driving the behavior.
Unfortunately, when we are trapped in the performance paradigm that is so focused on behavior, we construct all kinds of unhealthy masks to hide what is really true about ourselves. Thankfully, the truth of the Gospel—that in Christ we are loved for who we are and not what we do—frees us to remove our masks and to boldly enter genuine community with fellow strugglers.
God bless!
Traylor
Hello, I’ve read the chapters on small groups / accountability groups in your book. I have a question about a recent blog post I read by pastor Tullian Tchividjian, where he called accountability groups a “Barrier to Honesty” (http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tullian/2012/09/24/a-barrier-to-honesty/). Could you perhaps consider making a blog post that responds to the issues that pastor Tullian makes about such groups? That would really help me. Thanks, Tim