Developing Accountability

This post is part of a collection of articles sent as a follow-up to GYMN trainings. You can use these posts in your youth ministry. At the end of the article are questions for you to reflect on or for your youth leadership team to discuss.

In the city, where I first got involved in youth ministry, is a mountain rising high above sea level. Hikers traveling along the well-worn path can reach a resting place where the peak of the mountain can be seen. But to reach that mountain top requires passage along a difficult path that goes up steeply and is troublesome to pass. From this point in the journey people stop and enjoy the limited view of the scenery. Most of them, seeing that going farther will be difficult, linger for a while and then head back down. Only those who persevere get to see the view from above, a breath-taking view, of the entire city and the sea beyond.

There is an analogy to this story in our youth ministry. There, the journey is called fellowship and the narrow pathway is accountability. In a nutshell, accountability is the responsibility to someone for your activities. From the Bible, let us look at two passages that show us the nature of accountability:

“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” James 5:16

“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” Hebrews 10:24-25.

An accountability group is where a few Christians get together and live out the elements found in these verses (confession of sin, encouragement and prayer). But let me go back for a moment to our analogy of a mountain trail and say once more: accountability is the hard pathway that leads to deeper levels of fellowship.

Accountability does not occur naturally and rarely does anyone find it a pleasant experience to go through. This is true of me: I have found that even with people I have known for years and within a well-established group, accountability for me remains a constant uphill struggle. Some reasons we find it so difficult are:

Fear – makes us hesitant to share our lives with others even though we know that it would be good for us. We fear that we will be judged and considered unworthy. This makes it doubly hard for youth leaders (I for one often feel that there are superhuman standards we must reach and have to remind myself that, like everyone else, I have my share of temptations and defeats).

Shame – The stigma of sin also makes us afraid to show our true self to others. We may feel that our sins are too big or too scandalous to tell to anyone.

Pride – Human pride also makes it hard for us share our struggles and our failures with others because doing so is a humbling experience.

And so to take the path of accountability we must be intentional about it.

Here is another reason why accountability is not easily done. Mark Ostreicher, President of Youth Specialties, tells this story of a small group he was in:

“Just because we met every week, we never had a hint that one of the guys had a 10 year struggle with [pornography] that – later, after our group had moved on – almost ended his marriage, and did end his youth ministry career. And this was just the kind of thing we talked about in our group. But he, voluntarily, chose not to.”

He goes on to point out that accountability is a voluntary thing. We must face the prospect that even if we put our best effort into creating environments for accountability, we may still fail.

Yet in spite of all these, there is much to gain in an accountability group! Let me just highlight two, although there are many more.

First, It Prevents Sudden Death:
The first sign of heart disease acknowledged publicly is oftentimes the last: sudden death. So it could be with us in our struggle with sin. The first public acknowledgment of sin is oftentimes the end of ministry for many a youth leader. The verses above of Hebrews 10:24-25 are followed by this statement

For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.” Hebrews 10:26-27

Preventive measures such as medical check-ups help people monitor their risk of a heart attack and help them to change their lifestyle accordingly. Having an accountability group works much in the same way, it helps us to diagnose the condition of our heart and keeps in check behaviors and patterns that would lead us to down the path of certain destruction. Richard Exley says,

Temptation flourishes in the dark, but it withers and dies when it is brought into the light of accountability.

Oh, how many youth and even youth leaders would be able to escape the traps of sexual immorality, addictive vices and other sins leading to the path of no return if they took up accountability. As we pursue it in our group, the life we save may very well be our own.

Secondly, It Brings Us to a Deeper Walk:
To go further in communion with Christ outweighs any hardships we may encounter in moving onto the pathway of accountability in our ministry to youth. Yes, it involves a great deal of work and time and energy and yes, we may very well fail in reaching some no matter the effort involved and yet to see our youth, other leaders and ourselves being built up in Christ through the help of a strong accountability group is more than worth the pains involved in the process.

In addition to the benefits of accountability it is also critical to consider some guidelines for starting up accountability in your ministry.

• Start Small – In starting the process of accountability for the first time, I recommend beginning with your self and a few others (this can come from your leadership team). Don’t give in to the temptation to put things into operation immediately with your entire group. Accountability needs to be experienced and modeled more than to be talked about. And as you exemplify in your life the highs and lows of being in an accountability group, others will begin to see and open up and you can bring others to join in the process.
• Cultivate – For groups to grow in accountability requires a loving and caring environment. This involves trustworthy relationships where people can safely share their secrets without fear of gossip or condemnation and yet be held up and called to account for their actions. Let me emphasize care and love, without these elements our groups will create more harm than good. If these things are not in our youth group it would be best to focus on building on fellowship for a time and keep accountability in reserve.
• Don’t Force It – Accountability is not an overnight procedure but something built slowly, sometimes very slowly. When setting deadlines for goals in this area don’t think in days and weeks but rather think in terms of months and years.
• Pray Hard – Although an accountability group can be a pathway to growth, no program can change the condition of the human heart. This is why we need to labor in prayer asking God to change hearts. As the verse in James 5:16 states  “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”
• Point to Jesus— As you begin to incorporate accountability into your group continue to remind yourself and others of the main objective. The group should never become just a way to feel better and lighter for having shared your burdens. The goal should always be to have a deeper walk with God. And for that to happen there must be change.

Let me just end by emphasizing the last point with this verse: Hebrews 12:2:

…looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross…

Like our Lord, let us endure the pathway of accountability looking forward to our goal, the joy we will have with Christ Jesus.

Walking together,
Alvan Tauli of GYMN Asia

Reflection and Action Items:

1. Can you think of other reasons why youth would not want to journey into accountability?
2. Which of the following: fear, shame and pride, do you think may be the biggest hindrance to your becoming part of an accountability group?
3. Can you give other benefits to becoming part of such a group?
4. Assess the state of the groups that are in your youth ministry or the group you are in: is it ready for accountability or do we need to build fellowship first?
5. Form a small group for the purpose of accountability. Write down when, where and how regularly the group meet.
6. Make a set of questions and activities for your accountability group that will help you live out James 5:16 and Hebrews 10:24-25 in the context of the accountability group.