Lie #37 You Need An Accountability Partner

(Here's the last section I wrote yesterday as I was working on the manuscript, 52 Lies Heard In Church Every Sunday.)

I realize that I’m really getting out into the deep water with this one, because I’m criticizing a strong current fad. It is vogue and fashionable now in the church world to teach people that they must have an accountability partner, but there are some real problems with how this is understood and practiced, assuming your concept of it fits the general view of its meaning that I’ve encountered in many places.

If you’re not familiar with this concept, an accountability partner is usually the title for somebody you meet with every week and you divulge your darkest secrets. You tell them about your greatest struggles, and they hold you accountable to make sure you are living in the right way and doing the right things.

The way this practice is promoted is that you are supposed to give your accountability partner a license to be hard on you, to demand answers, and jump on you if you are falling short. You have to be truthful about your deepest darkest sins. You have to reveal any and everything, from whether or not you read your Bible enough this week, to whether you have had had your quiet time or had dirty thoughts. You have to be totally “transparent,” which is the word you hear over and over. And remember, “transparent” literally means that you can see everything. Here you see one of the limitations of such a stringent set-up: The value of an accountability partner is no better than your willingness to be honest with the person you are talking to. The reality is that only you and God will know the truth about that.

Now that may not be the way you think of the term “accountability partner,” but as I travel and speak in a lot of places that is how I often hear it presented. The matter I’m discussing here isn’t the idea of having a good friend with whom you can be honest and who encourages you by calling forth the best for you. The essence of what I’m challenging here is accountability. Affirmation that helps you grow in your love for Jesus is a different scenario altogether.

The truth is you don’t need somebody to police your daily lifestyle. You don’t need somebody to evaluate you about whether or not you are doing the things you think you need to be doing. Do you hear the legalistic undertones of that? It’s always about “I should be doing this or I should be doing that.” Or, that “I must be avoiding this or that. I need you, my friend, to put on a sheriff’s badge every week and sit down with me, challenge me, and ask me if I’m doing those things or not. Hold me accountable.” It’s an admission that “I need you to make me do the right things and avoid the wrong things, because otherwise I’ll do the wrong things.”

Once you look at it that way, you can see that this is an extreme action to take. Now, if you have a specific area of life where you are having trouble making a change; an area where you want encouragement — fine. Ask a trusted friend for help, because that will be an honor for a true friend. But to say I need it as a lifestyle because I can’t live an ordinary Christian life is a sign that there are far bigger things wrong.

The idea of an ongoing accountability partner is just not a fit with the grace walk way. Put this into perspective: We all need good Christian friends. The Bible has a lot to say about our role to help, encourage, and counsel one another. Maybe you have a person in your life you have called an accountability partner, but you don’t have the kind of relationship I’ve already described. Instead, you have the kind of relationship where you meet together to encourage each other and lift each other up, and you pull each other up toward your best. If so, that is good! We all need to be encouragers, and we need encouragers in our lives.


TAKE A FRESH LOOK AT THE SCRIPTURES
The common idea of an accountability partner is a cheap counterfeit of an authentic relationship based on trust and encouragement, and it actually gets in the way of our applying that kind of relationship. We do need each another. God has built us so that we are not meant to live out our lives alone. The New Testament speaks often about the positive effects we have on one another. For instance, Paul wrote, “Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).

On another occasion, he said, “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor. . . . Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:10,15).

To the Thessalonians, he wrote, “We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone” (1 Thessalonians 5:14).
The writer of Hebrews encourages us, “And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling 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).

I believe that if you read those verses carefully and notice their prevailing tone, you’ll agree that they sound very different from the heavy-handed “accountability partner” concept. Ask yourself: How would you like to be the recipient of other believers’ attention in the way those verses describe? Of course you would! Who wouldn’t want to be treated that way?

But the accountability partner movement comes across more like the secret police. It’s simply Pharisaism in modern dress.

Is there ever a time when it is appropriate to correct each another, to tell each other when we’re wrong? Yes, there is – assuming that we have the kind of relationship with each other that makes it a perfectly acceptable expression of authentic love. Paul described it this way: “And concerning you, my brethren, I myself also am convinced that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to admonish one another” (Romans 15:14).

Yes, there are times when to tell each other when we’re wrong is an expression of love. If you’re going the wrong way, it’s a blessing and an act of loving ministry for somebody to tell us we’re going in a dangerous direction. The Old and New Testaments agree on this. One proverb says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy” (Proverbs 27:6).

However, no matter how much the Bible discusses the blessings of the help we can offer one another, the best truth of all about this is that God has already given us the best Encourager possible -- the indwelling Holy Spirit. Jesus said these things as He predicted the coming of the Spirit: “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever, that is the Spirit of truth …” (John 14:16-17).

We have the Holy Spirit in us. We have the Holy Spirit to guide us. He is the one who will show us when we are not living up to who we are in Jesus Christ. He is the best accountability partner you’ll ever have in life.

The word translated “Helper” is the Greek word parakletos, from which we get the term, “paraclete.” It means “one who comes alongside” to help and strengthen. It can mean a defense attorney, or a counselor. That is the role of the Holy Spirit. Think about it: You have God Himself, that is, the Person of the Holy Spirit — Christ’s empowering presence — in you to counsel, teach, correct, strengthen, and help you. What a difference that could make, if we were more aware of the resources God has already made available to us.

CLARIFY YOUR THINKING
Don’t think I’m suggesting that it’s not good idea to have a friend with whom you are completely honest. I haven’t said that nor do I believe it. However, I do challenge the assertion that you need an accountability partner, in the sense that there is somebody that you need to always be accountable to about confessing your sins and vulnerabilities, and answering to whether or not you’ve done the right or wrong things. I believe that is a perversion of the biblical truths about the help we should give each other. And even more serious, it can obscure the even greater truth that the Holy Spirit is your accountability partner. He will nurture and lead you, and encourage you onward and upward.