Accountability In The Emerging Church
Andy asked a question early in the piece about if the Church is just when people gather together, what happens to accountability? The gathering is likely to just become people getting together as mates with no relationship to God.
This is true, it would be easy to allow the gatherings to just be a bbq with mates talking about the football and so on, but I think we are looking at a bigger issue within the Christian community.
As a Christian I have looked to the church to keep me accountable, this has often meant that I felt guilty for not praying enough, not reading my Bible enough, not worshiping enough, or not having the 'right' relationship with Jesus that I should have. I forfeited a great deal of my spirituality to fit in to what the church wanted from me as it made me accountable. I have an activist spirituality, which means that quiet times don't really do anything for me, but planting tree's or working on something engages my spirituality and strengthens my relationship with God. There is no right way or wrong way.
I think though, and this was said to me during my ministry formation training, that people in churches are likely to feel threatened by my approach to faith, my activist spirituality will clash with the people that want to have quiet times and reflective communities.
There is space for both, but I felt squashed within the church and could have easily walked away and joined the Socialist Students Collective or something that was active in is expression.
What has this got to do with accountability?
I think we are look to the Church and other people to hold us accountable. We lose our personal integrity when we just do what other people tell us we 'should' be doing! Being accountable for me means acting with integrity, it does not mean living up to a quota of prayer times, bible readings and worship services, it means acting with integrity on the things that you believe. If you thrive on quiet times, good for you, make sure you do it, let others know that you intend to do it, but don't expect everyone else to do it because you said so. The same goes for people like me who want to be doing things all the time, act with integrity, if you are passionate about something act on it, but don't expect everyone else to do what you want!
The Church is made up of people with individual expressions and spiritualities, you cannot dictate to everyone what they should, do, think or be. This is what makes the Church so beautiful, and at the same time so frustrating.
That said, there is a need to avoid gathering soley with the people that are exactly the same as you, the need to challenge yourself and find out who you are.
Pete
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2 comments:
Question - how do you then escape the trap that your spirituality and journey becomes just doing those things that are already easy for you and that you would do anyway - where is the element of call to repentance and change?
For those that naturally feel more confortable with the quiet times and devotions, isn't there a call on them to get out and put their faith into action? And vice versa?
I agree with your idea that accountability should not be about telling people to conform to a particular model of christianity. But we also need to value the way that God can speak to us through models which are different to what we would normally be comfortable with.
dan@signposts.org.au
signposts
Yeah great post there Pete. Leading a couple of teams of leaders, I wrestled a lot with the issue of accountability this year.
I'm pretty anti making people pray/read the Bible every day etc, but I do know that I also see my role as facilitating their spiritual growth, which often means kicking ppl up the bum for not doing whatever it is that sustains them spiritually.
Also agreed with you there Dan that people do need to be challenged, and confronted with stuff that is a challenge for them.
I do believe that following Christ requires effort and sacrifice, but maybe its a matter of working out what that will look like for different people.
Great thoughts though.
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