I need you. You need me. We need each other. This statement regularly resonates in my heart as I consider the invitation to grow in my relationship with Jesus. Last week, we focused on fellowship that goes beyond a gathering to eat, to a deeper place of transformation. Part of the sharing in fellowship is the calling to accountability where we regularly join with brothers and/or sisters for encouragement and challenge.
In the tradition of John and Charles Wesley, the practice of accountability was imbedded in the Classes and Bands who met together to help one another grow in faith and in relationship with Jesus. These groups would ask the participants to open their hearts and minds to one another to share the good and the bad of the week. The group would encourage the participants to practice the Means of Grace (spiritual disciplines) and would hold one another accountable to intentionally practice the Means of Grace in their daily lives.
Over time, the intentionality of meeting together in Classes and Bands has moved from transformational community to more informational community. We have moved from accountability where we allow other people to be a check and balance for our lives, to a place of information where we study a book or curriculum. The book or curriculum may create good conversation, but it has the potential to distance the participant from his own life and from deep intimate relationship with one another.
Kevin Watson in his book The Class Meeting writes:
Kitchen Groups [a local form of Class Meeting] foster a community of honesty and personal accountability. The accountability comes not in any prescribed set of rules or confessions but in learning to understand and respond to all of our experiences, good and bad, through the perspective of our relationship with God.
As I continue to grow in my relationship with Jesus, I am convicted I need to find this accountability in more intentional ways. When I do not have accountability in relationship with other brothers in Christ, I become complacent, apathetic, and stuck in a rut. I fall into the trap of doing the same thing over and again that has given results in the past, only to discover there is more Jesus has for me.
How are you joining with other followers of Jesus for intentional accountability and community? How are you being encouraged and challenged to allow other people to call you into greater transformation and growth in Jesus? How would our lives be different if we joined with other followers of Jesus to help us “understand and respond to all our experiences good and bad, through the perspective of our relationship with God”?
Prayer: Lord, I need more accountability in my life. I thank you for brothers and sisters who come alongside me at times to help me grow in my relationship with you, but I need more intentionality and consistency. Open my eyes and heart to a small group of people with whom I can share my life and experience accountability. In Jesus’ name. Amen.