Emails to God

Dear God, I’m on to the last area of Pastoral Identity as defined by the Community of Hope International. This will be my last in the series–Attitude, Ability, Authority, and Accountability. I’m teaching these lessons tonight. I pray that you will help me to do this well, and help the attendees glean something from these lessons that will ripple your presence into the community.

Here are my notes about Accountability from the curriculum:

• Accountability is closely linked to Authority.
  • Four areas of Accountability:
    • You are accountable to God–exercising your gifts within His calling
    • You are accountable to your community and its leaders.
    • You are accountable to your peers in the community to maintain consistent standards
      • Important to provide clear and regular reports from pastoral visits
    • You are accountable to yourself to grow into your Pastoral Identity

One of the most dangerous things is when I am totally unaccountable. I don’t care how great of a person someone is, zero accountability will lead to bad decisions every time.

Here’s a benign example. A friend of mine decided to hike the Appalachian Trail by himself. He got in shape and trained for months. He was ready to go. But after a few days he abandoned. One of the things he told me was that after a couple of days he found that the decisions he was faced with from time to time (e.g. where to stop to eat, where to camp, etc.) became compromised and he started to lose confidence in them without someone else there to run them by.

That’s a simple one. I can use examples from every walk of life. From running a corporation with no accountability to a board of directors, to living alone and having no one to challenge your decisions, we all need accountability. In the case of this lesson, if I go out in your name but I do not submit to be accountable to others then I can pretty much go off in any direction I want, be it theologically or behaviorally, and do some real damage.

Father, help me to foster accountability where I work. Help me to submit to being accountable to my wife, my board of directors, my coworkers, and my friends.

In Jesus’ name I pray,

Amen

Dear God, this is day three of me going through the Pastoral Identity curriculum from the Community of Hope. Of the four parts of Pastoral Identity that they list–Attitude, Ability, Authority, and Accountability–I am up to Authority. From the notes I took about this a few years ago, this part looks a little shorter. Here is the outline I put together regarding Authority:

• The awareness of being an authority, under authority, and conveying authority is evidence of growth in your Pastoral Identity.
  • As a Caregiver, you represent a community–The Community of Hope International.
    • You are accountable to this community because they give you authority to minister.
    • When you carry God’s Spirit to others you exhibit authority in your ministry.
    • You are accountable to the clergy and laypersons over you.

Of course, this curriculum is part of a program this particular church is using so they set up the ministerial program as the authority as the agency that gives the individual the right to minister in the name of the church. But we don’t lead with Authority. we lead with Attitude because that’s the point from which we have to start. Going back to the lesson on Attitude, if we don’t have the right one for this work then we will abuse our Authority and make ourselves a burden on the person to whom we are ministering.

Father, as I live my own life, I am not empowered by any church to speak or minister in its name. I am a simple lay person who represents you, and any Authority I have comes from you. You give me Authority, but I am also under your Authority (as well as under the Authority of my local church), and because of this I can live out this Authority when I interact with others. To the extent I do this, please help me to do it in the most humble of ways.

In Jesus’ name I pray,

Amen