Many trying to find freedom from habitual sin often discover accountability doesn’t actually work. It’s not that accountability is bad. It’s just that the we don’t often experience healthy accountability and it ends up hindering freedom, not helping.
For instance, we mistake accountability to be about holding others accountable. The problem with this approach is that it predisposes itself to deceitfulness. No one likes others prying into their lives when they’ve been living in failure the past week. We then tend to frame our reports or “confessions” so they don’t sounds as bad as they actually might be.
We also mistake “accountability groups” for being the best format for accountability. Yet, unless we actually have relationship with the people in the group, and unless a safe environment has been intentionally and strategically cultivated, most of us still gloss over our reports because we’re more concerned about impressing the others in the group than we are about finding lasting freedom.
A third flaw that often derails victory for those most desperate is that we mistake accountability as being the secret to victory. But as we’ve seen, if we’re not careful, accountability can actually facilitate hiding others from who we really are. And hiding ourselves only leads to deeper bondage, not freedom.
So, does accountability work? Why is it important, if accountability actually is important? What does it look like to have healthy accountability, not flawed?
I’ve been blessed to be a part of several good and rewarding forms of accountability. Some of have been more helpful than others. But I’ve tasted enough good forms that I know why people often suggest accountability as a way for finding freedom.
When I experience accountability that truly rewards me with victory and freedom, or when I hear others talk about this kind of accountability, I see three common factors that directly counter these three common flaws. Like everything, there is more to cultivating healthy accountability than three things. But if any form of accountability lacks these three factors, it won’t work. Not only won’t it work, it will do the opposite of what people are hoping accountability will do for them.
Give Account. Don’t hold account.
The language of scripture has more to do with a person taking the initiative to give account for himself, not going around holding others accountable.
Romans 14:12 says “..each of us will give an account of himself to God.” Pursuing accountability ought to be about me knowing that one day I will stand before God and have to account for everything I’ve done, thought, been here on earth. And since he knows it all anyway, there’s no point hiding anything now.
It is so much more rewarding to offer information than to have it “demanded” of you. Psychologically, it goes better, and God knew that. He knows our hearts and our tendency to protect ourselves when others are snooping. Which is why his design intends for us to take responsibility for ourselves in giving account.
Until we have owned keeping ourselves accountable, accountability will never work.
Nurture healthy community.
James 5:16 says to “confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” 1 Thessalonians 5:11 tells us to “encourage one another and build each other up.” Galatians 6:1-5 talks about those who are spiritual restoring in a spirit of gentleness those who are caught in sin. We are to bear each other’s burdens when that burden is something causing sin in our lives.
The point is, victory and freedom in any area of our lives only happens in the context of a community of people who know each other, care about each other, and love each other enough to nudge one another toward holiness while doing so in an extremely sensitive manner.
This can be the substance of an accountability group. If it’s not, however, meeting in such a group won’t work.
Instead of getting a random group of guys together, begin investing in the relationships within your current life and church community and you will likely find, without even intentionally creating it, a solid group of people with whom to have more intimate accountability.
Realize accountability is one piece to a multifaceted puzzle of finding personal wholeness.
Accountability is not a secret key. It’s not even really a “tool.” At the end of the day, accountability is about community, and community is one of the built-in needs of our nature. God longs for relationship with us, so he seems to have created within us the need for relationships with others. Accountability is a necessary offering people who are in community with each other give to one another.
I don’t think we should ever look at problems in our lives as specific issues to be fixed. Rather, we should let the problem cause us to inspect our whole being and see where part of our souls may be out of alignment with God’s design.
It’s kind of like filling out a Sudoku puzzle. We may think we’ve found all the numbers for each box, only to realize the last two don’t go in their boxes. So, we look back through the whole puzzle and see where we misplaced something.
Accountability is one of the numbers in the puzzle. It may be a number in a larger box of sexuality, or whatever issue we’re dealing with. We could compare the puzzle as a whole to our lives. Accountability was never meant to solve the puzzle, or even the issue (one of the four larger boxes) in and of itself. It’s part of solving it. But only one piece, to a multifaceted puzzle of personal wholeness.
3 Possible Formats for Healthy Accountability
Since we’re looking at accountability in three’s, I’ll give you three formats I have found extremely valuable in different seasons of my life.
One-on-One with a Close Friend
At Bible school, when I was eighteen years old, I met with one of my fellow students every week to pray and fast. It happened kind of randomly, at first. We hit it off well, and both wanted to spend some time in dedicated prayer each week. So every Wednesday over lunch we’d meet and pray.
He became one of my best friends, we dated each other with a weekly phone call until we had girlfriends to call instead. Even today, though miles, wives, children, and responsibilities separate us, if we ever get a chance to sit down and connect, we can pick up right where we left off.
In the middle of all this, he became not only a close friend, but a meaningful accountability partner. It wasn’t for a long season of life, but long enough. Through one of the loneliest periods of my life, I knew I could connect with him and share about deep, heart issues.
Not only that, but he cared about these issues, and I cared about his. And neither of us were focused on exhorting or challenging the other person; we were simply wanting to walk with each other in our journeys.
In a Group of Close Friends
While living overseas, I had the privilege of getting together with five other brothers once a month and sharing with each other about all areas of life. I was eight years younger than the next youngest, so I felt like a little brother meeting with all my big brothers.
These men not only cared about me, they modeled to me what it was like to be a man of character, to lead my family and ministry with integrity, and to walk in holiness with God. I have incredibly fun memories of those times. I felt safe and willingly offered information to them about how I was struggling (or winning) personally.
It’s easy to let those meetings slide, if we’re not careful. And this type of format is perhaps the most difficult way of cultivating healthy, safe, accountability. But I saw these men every week. Often more. So our once-a-month meeting was simply an extension of the relationship we already had with each other. When that’s the case, group accountability meetings can be very effective in helping each walk in victory.
Through Technology
There was also a period of my life where I emailed close friends on a bi-weekly basis, sharing how things were going. I had several specific areas I gave account of, such as moral life, family life, personal life and habits. I found it helpful because simply taking the time to write the email forced me to evaluate things in my life I’d otherwise not evaluate.
In the last year, however, I’ve tried doing a similar form of accountability and it simply hasn’t worked. My email load, not to mention my personal responsibilities, has increased exponentially since that period of life.
But here’s what I am doing that has been valuable: I have several close friends who get regular Covenant Eyes reports about where I go online. I also meet monthly with a friend (also getting those reports) who lives in my community. It’s kind of a hybrid of all three approaches, I guess.
And while accountability right now feels less organized than any other time of my life, simply knowing these men are getting reports of what I do online helps me take seriously what I do. I’m grateful technology can help me give account to my brothers in this way.
I personally don’t see this current format being a sustainable format for many years. But it’s been a helpful format for a period of transition.
Accountability matters because accountability at its best is about community. And community is one of the core needs we all need met.
Give account. Don’t hold account. Nurture healthy community, and realize accountability is one piece to a multifaceted puzzle of finding personal wholeness.
What are ways you have found to cultivate healthy accountability in your life? Share in the comments below.
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