Accountability Questions

Several folks asked me about the questions people use in small group settings to enter deep fellowship and exercise real accountability. What follows is a sampling of some, ending with a list from the early Methodists. Whenever in my life I have had a group of guys who met regularly, prayed consistently, and utilized this kind of discipline, I have grown in my walk with Christ!

Chuck Swindoll’s Accountability Questions for groups of pastors:
1. Have you been with a woman anywhere this past week that might be seen as compromising?
2. Have any of your financial dealings lacked integrity?
3. Have you exposed yourself to any sexually explicit material?
4. Have you spent adequate time in Bible study and prayer?
5. Have you given priority time to your family?
6. Have you fulfilled the mandates of your calling?
7. Have you just lied to me?

From the Highway Community in Palo Alto, CA:
1. Did I invest the proper quality/quantity of time in my most important relationships?
2. Did my life reflect verbal integrity?
3. Did I express a forgiving attitude toward others?
4. Did I practice undisciplined or addictive behavior?
5. Was I honorable in my financial dealings?
6. Was I sexually pure?
7. Did I spend time with the Lord this week, completing the Bible reading for the week?
8. Did I pray for my pre-Christian friends? Did I talk with someone about Christ?

From Dave Guiles, director of Grace Brethren International Missions:
1. How have you sensed God’s presence in your life during this past week?
2. Have you received a specific answer to your prayers? What was it?
3. Have you spoken with a non-believer about your faith in Jesus Christ? With whom?
4. To whom have you shown God’s love during this past week?
5. What have you learned about God in your personal Bible reading this past week?
6. As a result of your Bible reading this past week, how have you determined to better obey God?
7. Specifically, what area of your life do you feel that God most wants to change? Have you taken specific steps to make those changes?
8. What good habit do you feel God wants to form in your life? Have you taken specific steps to develop that habit?

Neil Cole's Basic Questions:
1. What is God telling you to do?
2. What are you going to do about it?

Questions asked in the early Methodist Class Meetings:
Have you the forgiveness of your sins?
Have you peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ?
Have you the witness of God’s Spirit with your spirit that you are a child of God?
Is the love of God shed abroad in your heart?
Has no sin, inward or outward, dominion over you?
Do you desire to be told of your faults?
Do you desire to be told of all your faults, and that plain and home?
Do you desire that every one of us should tell you from time to time whatsoever is in his heart concerning you?
Consider! Do you desire we should tell you whatsoever we think, whatsoever we fear, whatsoever we hear, concerning you?
Do you desire that in doing this we should come as close as possible, that we should cut to the quick, and search your heart to the bottom?
Is it your desire and design to be on this and all other occasions entirely open, so as to speak everything that is in your heart, without exception, without disguise, and without reserve?
- The Works Of John Wesley, Volume 9 (The Methodist Societies, History, Nature,
and Design), pp.77-78.

Even if you find only one prayer partner who will share this kind of relationship, it can and will change your life for the better!

- Pastor Terry