I’ve just started Doug Pagitt’s new book Reimagining Spiritual Formation. It’s written by a number of people from Pagitt’s church, Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis.

The first bit that struck me hard was Doug’s thoughts on Christian “accountability”:

The people of Solomon’s Porch seek to make community mean something in our Christian context, so we look for ways to make our community of faith a place where we become involved in one another’s lives in intimate, meaningful, tranformative ways.

This kind of intimacy requires us to move beyond mere accountability. Accountability is built on the notion that a person will do her own work as she seeks to live a Chrsitian life while others do what they can to keep her on track. This may seem like the best our local community can offer us, but we are striving for more. We feel called to vulnerability. We are seeking to move into relationships where we don’t merely ask others to hold us to living in the way of Jesus, but where we invite them to participate in our efforts to do so. We are trying to open our lives up in such a way that others do not simply keep us on track, but become actual agents of redemption and change. p28

Some friends and I were talking about forming an accountability group a few months ago, like we had in college. Someone said, “Why would you want an accountability group? How about an encouragement group? That’s more what we all seem to need.”

I think we were all a little more open to each other in college. Now we’re real live adults and it’s hard to invite others - even our closest friends - into that personal space. But we need to. We need to become vulnerable to each other’s input, sensitive to each others’ struggles, and humble before the God who is forming us.