Another question - accountability relationships

This question came when I was talking to a colleague in another country: 'If you don't go to church aren't you in danger of missing out on accountability relationships?'

There are two parts to my answer to this one: Firstly, being a relational follower of Jesus enhances and strengthens mutual accountability and secondly I am not sure that what 'Evangelicals' call accountability relationships are either Biblically sound or healthy.

Let me unpack those a little. What I see the early followers of Jesus doing through Scripture and a healthy model to follow is sharing their lives with each other. That sharing 'held them accountable' if you like, but in a mutual transparency relationship not a hierarchical accountability relationship.

When I discussed accountability with people who believe in it we always get down to where the rubber hits the road... and that is when the person in an accountability relationship to someone over him/her believes the Lord is leading in a different way to the one their accountability leader believes. Those people who believe in this sort of structure tell me that the person should always do what their leader believes.

I have two problems with this - firstly it is abdicating responsibility ('I'm only doing what I was told to do') and secondly we observe in real life that just doesn't happen. How many people have we known who have left their wives, knowing it is wrong, because 'the Lord told me to' or some such statement? So basically accountability relationships don't work and if they did work they would be wrong.

But back to the core of living life as a relational journey. In that context, we aim to walk alongside Jesus and others on the journey sharing our lives in transparency with Him and with them. This is a much more healthy walk than attending a number of meetings every week. I have a colleague who says that one of the main problems with 'church' is that it focuses on 'sin management'. A relational journey focuses on the Lord.