Prayer Accountability in a Christian Home

Why I Don’t Believe in Christian Accountability

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I am deeply committed to all of us living a life of radical integrity and grace.

Through People of the Second Chance, I get to work with leaders on personal sustainability and living a life with no regrets. And though I champion the ideas of transparency, authenticity and brutal honesty, I don’t believe in Christian accountability.

The whole concept makes me cringe, and I don’t think I’m alone in this assessment. It’s horribly broken, ineffective and doing a lot of people a disservice. In many ways, Christian accountability is facilitating a pathway to our lives being chopped up by character assassins.

So here are a few reasons why I don’t believe in Christian accountability and why a new discussion needs to happen around maintaining our integrity.

1. Lack of Grace

The primary reason Christian accountability doesn’t work is because we are more interested in justice and fixing a problem. I’ve seen too many times great men and women get chewed up by this process. When we fail, what we need most is grace and a second chance, not a lecture.

We have all probably experienced or seen a harsh response to our struggles or failures. But there is a big problem when we respond with justice and not grace. You see, human beings are wired up for self-protection and survival.

When we see others being hurt, rejected or punished for their sin, we correctly conclude that it is better to hide, conceal and fake it in the future. It basically comes down to this: I don’t want to get hurt, so I’m not telling.

When we lack grace, accountability breaks down.

2. Bad Environments

Let me be frank. If I were having an illicit affair with a woman, I’m not going to confess it to four guys at a Denny’s breakfast. And yet, too often, Christian accountability is carried out in these types of environments.

We meet in small groups in a weekly environment with a few of our friends. Ultimately, there is a lid on how transparent these conversations can be, and too often, we believe that if we are meeting weekly then we are “accountable.

”

My best conversations about my brokenness and struggles have come in non-typical environments. Places where I am completely relaxed, at ease, and feel removed from my daily life.

My point is simple. Find an environment that is going to allow you to open up and examine your current process.

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I truly believe it is time to reinvent and rethink this very important component of our lives. Over the years, Christian accountability has deformed into a very ugly, uninspiring and broken system.

First off, I want to change the word from “accountability” to “advocacy.” If we are going to redefine a process and introduce a new concept, I think it needs a new word. The word I use in this context with fellow friends and leaders is advocacy. The term can be described as active support, intercession, or pleading and arguing in favor of someone.

So let’s take a look at what advocacy means.

Radical Grace Is the Foundation

Radical grace is the core engine for any healthy relationship. You can not have true transparency or confession without it. I encourage people to make verbal commitments to each other and clearly state that they will stand by one another through the best AND the worst.

Most people live with the fear of rejection and allow this fear to dictate how honest they will be with others. In advocacy, we are constantly demonstrating that this relationship is a safe place. Through our response to one another’s failures, our own deep confession and reminding each other that we are in this for the long haul, we implement radical grace.

Advocacy focuses on the “yes,” not the “no.” Too often, typical Christian accountability revolves around long lists of what NOT to do. We spend way too much time discussing and managing the sin.

Often, we lock onto the most minor unhealthy behaviors and think that’s going to prepare us for success in life.

Unfortunately, we operate on the faulty assumption that working on the symptoms will address the core problem. Bad idea!!!

Advocacy spurs us on to the “yes.” It revolves around the crazy good things that we should be engaging in. It pushes us to live a life of positive risks, creativity, adventure and significance. We rally around each other in this and focus our relationships around this theme.

I know that in my own life, I become vulnerable when I have lost a sense of mission and purpose. Having an advocate in our life is important in reminding us of our calling. 

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Unfortunately, the results speak for themselves. If Christian accountability were a company, it would need a serious bailout. It’s simply inadequate, and the results are sub par, at best.

The breaking down of our marriages, financial impropriety, egomaniacal and narcissistic behavior, sexual misconduct, and the bending of every rule we come across are simply signs of a failed system. Last week, I read a post from a pastor who had received emails from 33 other pastors who confessed to him of being involved in an affair.

If I wanted to, I could spend the next decade of my life convincing you how wonderful I am and how I have it all together. (Luckily, I have no desire to do that.) It bothers me that I’m clever enough to package Mike Foster in such a way that I could make you all believe what a swell guy I am and how I have it all together.

The problem with Christian accountability is that you and I can game the system. I know how to beat it, and if you stick around the church long enough, you will figure it out, too. And that’s a problem. We’re the alcoholic that knows where the hidden key to the liquor cabinet is.

Gaming the system is not hard. We know the right words. We know the right things to talk about. We know how to frame things up to effectively keep everyone off course on who we truly are. I can do it, and so can you. And that’s a big problem.

So that’s why I’m not a fan of Christian accountability and truly believe it is busted. But please don’t lose hope. I have something I want to offer up as a replacement to this flawed system of maintaining our integrity.

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When people fail or become involved in some scandal, too often we immediately consider the ramifications on the organization or company. I’ve talked to many Christians who are very concerned about when a pastor falls of how this impacts the cause of Christ.

Unfortunately, we place more concern on the damage to the brand of Christianity or the church instead of the fallen individual. I’ve seen horrific and hurtful things happen to people in the name of protecting the organization instead of the fallen person. Quite frankly, that sucks!!!

If you haven’t figured it out by now, Christianity’s brand is failures and wrecked lives. Churches are places with messy people who do stupid things.

The organization, church or company should take a back seat.

Multi-Group Approach

Christian accountability often is accomplished in small groups that are too general or with just one person leading, which puts too much responsibility on one individual.

Advocacy embraces having multiple layers of transparency and connection. I have about 10 people who are involved in spurring me on to a life of integrity. They can actively speak into my life, and I will listen and make the necessary tweaks.

However, I have about four people whom I have a deeper connection with and discuss harder things with. I also have more structure with this group. This is what I consider to be the core.

But even beyond the core, I have one friend that has full access. We take complete responsibility for each others’ integrity, purity and sustainability. I refer to this person as my “first call.

” When the crap hits the fan, I call him first.

Each layer moves into a greater level of commitment and advocacy, and each layer has an important role.

Источник: //churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/145836-why-i-don-t-believe-in-christian-accountability-giveaway.html

5 Reasons Why Christian Accountability Fails

The following is an excerpt from our free e-book, Coming Clean: Overcoming Lust Through Biblical Accountability.

In my previous article, I described the four key building blocks that give shape to our accountability relationships. These building blocks are James 5:16 and Hebrews 10:23-25: meeting together, confession of sin, prayer, and encouragement.

(This is structure of a healthy accountability relationship)

Accountability groups and partners are not magic pills. While accountability plays a crucial role in personal growth and holiness, there are many accountability pitfalls.

Here are five ways accountability often goes bad.

Problem #1: When Accountability Partners Are Absent

Accountability relationships need to be fostered through time together. It is hard to hold one another accountable when partners meet infrequently or sporadically (or not at all).

Often both parties are at fault. We might commit to “holding one another accountable,” but this is something vague, elusive, and undefined. Accountability partners need to have a very clear picture in their minds about what accountability really entails: face-to- face, voice-to-voice conversation.

When accountability partners do not meet in some fashion, the accountability relationship has no foundation. This means confession, prayer, and encouragement are erratic and shaky, at best.

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Problem #2: When Accountability Groups Are Programmatic

When we read through the one-anothers of the New Testament, one cannot help but see the organic, family dynamic that is meant to exist in the church.

We are called to an earnest love for one another (1 Peter 1:22), brotherly affection (Romans 12:10), single-minded unity (Romans 15:5), eating together (1 Corinthians 11:33), bearing each other’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), and having the same care for each other (1 Corinthians 12:25).

But often our approach to accountability is programmatic. We simply don’t have the quality of friendships that are close and spiritually meaningful, so we search for it in forced and sometimes awkward settings.

If meeting together, prayer, confession, and encouragement are the building blocks of accountability, then many of the other one-anothers in the New Testament are the “atmosphere” of the relationship. This should not be an empty, austere structure, but filled with the air of Christian love and friendship. You may be “doing everything right” but it still feels empty and cold.

Problem #3: When Accountability Partners Are Sincerity-Centered

Confession is the central pillar of accountability, but there are a few ways this pillar can be constructed poorly.

The first way confession of sin can go wrong is when it becomes an end in and of itself. This is when we believe confession is the only point of accountability, something we do to put to rest our uneasy consciences and get something off our chests. These kinds of accountability relationships make “getting the secret out” the whole point.

As therapeutic as this might feel—and it is therapeutic—we need to be careful that in our confession of sin we don’t trivialize sin as something that resolves itself with mere sincerity.

Jonathan Dodson, pastor of Austin City Life church, says that one surefire way to ruin your accountability relationship is by making it “a circle of cheap confession by which you obtain cheap peace for your troubled conscience.”

Christians do not believe that pardon from sin comes from merely being honest about sin. Your sincerity wasn’t nailed to a Roman cross for your sins; Christ was. Peace with God comes only by leaning on what Christ has done for us (Romans 5:1). We often mistake the relief of unleashing our secrets with true peace.

Conversation must not stop at confession. The outermost pillars of the accountability relationship call us to prayer and encouragement. After humble confession, we should encourage one another with the assurance of forgiveness promised in the gospel, and we should approach God’s throne of grace in prayer together.

In this way we not only hold one another accountable for our behavior, but we also hold one another accountable for trusting in the gospel for our complete forgiveness.

Problem #4: When Accountability Partners Are Obedience-Centered

The first way the pillar of confession can be built poorly is when we aim at cheap peace. The second way the pillar of confession can be constructed poorly is when the focus is on moral performance.

Some Christian accountability groups are militant about sin—a healthy attitude in its own right. Members want to see others grow in holiness, so this becomes the focus of the group: questions and answers that deal with obedience.

The problem is, mere rule keeping does not itself get to the heart of sin. This is one of the great lessons Paul teaches again and again. Merely knowing the law only aggravates our lusts (Romans 7:7-12), and following rigid ascetic regulations—don’t touch, don’t taste, don’t handle—is “of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Colossians 2:20-23).

Don’t turn the pillar of confession into a pedestal—a place where we can prop up the idol of our own obedience. Don’t turn accountability into a narcissistic program of self-improvement.

Accountability relationships this either center our thoughts on a few benchmarks of success that we might happen to be reaching, or force us into hiding because we don’t want to admit how much we are failing to hit the mark.

Problem #5: When Accountability Partners Forget the Gospel

Whether you slide toward being sincerity-centered or obedience-centered, both tendencies have ignored that the gospel is the capstone of accountability.

When we make our groups all about sincere confession with no expectation of change, we trivialize the very sins that were nailed to Jesus on the cross.

When we confess the same sins week after week, say a quick prayer, and go home, we merely highlight the cheap peace we feel from refreshing honesty, and we forget to comfort each other with a testimony of God’s grace of forgiveness.

We forget to challenge each other to fight sin in light of the motivations God provides in His Word.

When we make our groups all about obedience, we only reinforce our tendency to center our identity on our performance. This either drives us to rigid moralism or hiding the evil that lurks in us from others and ourselves.

Either way, these kinds of accountability relationships only reinforce legalism and self-absorption.

This robs us of the joy of building our identity on Christ’s obedience, and we lose an opportunity to speak about the grace of God that trains us to be godly.

This is why the gospel is the capstone of good accountability. Our confessions, prayers, and encouragement should all be done under the canopy of what the gospel promises God’s children.

• Confess your sins in light of the gospel. One aspect of repentance is agreeing with what God says about your sin, labeling your sin as truly sinful, as an affront to His holiness, something that cost Christ his life. Confess your sins to God and others knowing He is faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you (1 John 1:9).
• Pray together in light of the gospel. The gospel promises both grace to cover our sins (Romans 5:1-2) and grace to empower our obedience (Titus 2:11-14). Approach Christ together asking for this grace (Hebrews 4:16).
• Encourage one another in light of the gospel. Knowing that true internal change happens in our lives as we set our minds and affections on things above—the complete redemption that is coming to us (Colossians 3:1-4)—we should help one another do this. Mining the Scriptures together, we can teach and admonish one another in wisdom (v.16). We can strive together to have more of a foretaste of the holiness we are promised in the age to come.

We need responsive, gospel-driven accountability. As good accountability partners, we need to not only hear an account of our friends’ sins, but give an account of God’s grace—a grace that not only saves us from the guilt of sin, but also from the grip of sin.

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Источник: //www.covenanteyes.com/2014/08/01/christian-accountability-fails/

Your faith or your children–father faces impossible choice in North Africa

Imagine finding Jesus and not being able to talk about it. And then knowing you were the only Christian in your area and everyone around you, including your family, was hostile to your newfound faith–to the point of violent attack and abandonment.

Then imagine finding a community of people who also followed Jesus–a group you never knew existed. This is the beginning of Ibrahim’s faith journey in Algeria.

While his and his family’s story is still being written, Ibrahim and Pastor Muslih show us how God is working in North Africa.

“Daddy, daddy, please renounce your Christian faith, and return to Islam, so you can, for always, be our father.”

It is the cry of a confused seven-year-old Algerian child. And they are the words Ibrahim, a young man in his 30s, will forever remember. The day he almost died and was forced to choose between his children and Jesus.

A Secret Faith

Several years ago, Ibrahim began struggling with the Muslim religion he had been raised in—the same one almost all Algerians follow. Living far south in the country, deep in the Sahara Desert, Ibrahim never met non-Muslims. Until one day—the first time he heard about a man named Jesus.

“I met this man who told me about Jesus,” he remembers. “Hehad my full attention. Later, he took me to meet with Pastor Muslih* and twoyears ago I came to faith in Jesus.” Pastor Muslih works and lives in a town insouth Algeria, far from where Ibrahim lived at the time.

To those around him, Ibrahim’s newfound faith remained asecret. He visited the mosque and continued to say Islamic prayers, making sureto not speak a word about the change in his life.

“I didn’t make my faith known to my wife, nor to mychildren, I was too afraid they would take away my children,” he says. PastorMuslih explains that coming to faith in Jesus in Algeria can have large andnegative consequences for converts.

“Indeed, they can lose their wife and their children,” he says. “Sometimes families force couples to divorce when one of them becomes a Christian. The converts lose their children because the children automatically stay with the Muslim parent. When conversion from Islam to Christianity becomes public, they are in for big pressure. Often, people literally must flee their homes and villages.”

Ibrahim knows these consequences firsthand.  

The Attack

“After being a believer for some time, I felt I had to be open about my faith, to confess my conversion to my family,” Ibrahim says. “I contacted Pastor Muslih and told him that I wanted to speak up. He promised me he would pray for me.”

The first one Ibrahim told was his father.

“My father just stared at me and kept silent for about 15minutes,” he says. “He said nothing, did not respond at all. Then he rose fromhis chair and gathered all my brothers and sisters.”

Ibrahim wasn’t prepared for what happened next. His brothers came at him, fists swinging and shouting, “You will renounce your faith.’” His parents threatened to take away his wife and children.

The violent scene unfolded in front of his young children. Indesperate shrieks, they begged their father to deny Jesus.

“It was so hard to hear them say that I was about to lose myfamily, everything,” Ibrahim says, remembering the attack. “But I couldn’t renounce Jesus, I couldn’trenounce my faith. I said to my children, ‘I love you, I love you, but I loveJesus more.’”

His family threw him the house onto the streets.

A Surprising Call

Eventually, Ibrahim found refuge in the home of Pastor Muslih, many miles from his home and family. The pastor wasn’t surprised to hear about his family’s violent response.

“Last year we had seven people from our region who needed asafe place to stay,” he says.

“We listened to him, we prayed a lot with him. I am verydetermined about this: believers shouldn’t make compromises. Yes, it isdangerous to become a Christian in our country, but we should trust the Lordwhen we speak out as Christians. This often means that new believers have toflee.”

Over the next three months, Ibrahim spent time with Christians and learned about the Bible and what it means to live as a Christian. Then unexpectedly, his father called one day.

“Take back your wife and children, but leave the house,” hisfather told him.

Still amazed, Ibrahim smiles. “They are now with me. I wasable to rent a house somewhere else, and I found work; I am so happy that theylive with me again.”

“For her, the most important thing is that we are together again as a family,” he says.

Ibrahim’s father’s call and the outcome for his family is answeredprayer, says Pastor Muslih  “God hasheard our prayers,” he says. “We expected that Ibrahim wouldn’t see his wifeand children again. Through prayer, God has done something.”

The husband and father of two–and part of the family of God–now frequently meets with other believers. He’s part of a church. For him, the time of living as an isolated believer and away from his family has ended.

1,500 Believers Living in Isolation

But Ibrahim’s joyful outcome isn’t common. Pastor Muslih estimates that 1,500 believers in Algeria live in complete isolation, the way Ibrahim once did.

“Some of these believers are known to us, but they live too far away for us to visit,” Pastor Muslih says. “Some come to Jesus because they have dreams. Recently, I heard the testimony of a lady who saw Jesus in her dream.

The Lord is at work, and He uses dreams but also Christian television. Especially for a woman, it’s very difficult to have contact with other believers, due to the Muslim culture where women cannot do things on their own.

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When the Algerian churches hear about a new believer somewhere in the country, they attempt to contact them. “Ideally we would to visit them, but we haven’t enough people to do that,” Pastor Muslih explains. “Some of them we only see once a year, or even less.”

When possible, Pastor Muslih’s church invites isolated believers to three-day meetings the church frequently organizes. In the past year, his church held three gatherings. He and his wife led two trainings in the south, specifically for women, where they celebrated communion, enjoyed fellowship with other believers and learned from each other.

Back at home, these new believers grow in their new faith by watching Christian television at the moments they can safely switch to a channel, Pastor Muslih explains. “As soon as they have a Bible, they study the Bible.

Especially at the beginning, most continue to live as a Muslim, Ibrahim did. They go to the mosque but instead of praying their Islamic prayers, they pray to Jesus. They will also participate in all Muslim cultural events, mostly fear.

I am very convinced that one day they should confess they are Christians. The Bible is clear about that.”

“We had the police asking about the believers in our region,” he says. “They want to know numbers, they want to know about the visits. One of the officials said to me: ‘Don’t lie, we know everything, you are constantly monitored.’

“I am not afraid, but my wife and son are worried because they know the police come to me and ask me questions,” he says. “But this also puts pressure on the new believers. There is a lot of suffering, especially for those who lose their family. I sometimes don’t find the words to comfort and encourage them. That is the burden we bear here in Algeria.”

Open Doors is coming alongside churches in Algeria, including Pastor Muslih’s, to provide the discipleship materials and program that churches use to disciple the new believers they encounter.

Источник: //www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/stories/your-faith-or-your-children-father-faces-impossible-choice-in-north-africa/