Shame on you. Shame on me. Yes, we’re all sinners in a fallen state, so shame shame SHAME!! Actually, one of the coolest things that Jesus did (besides providing for our eternal salvation and fellowship with God the Father in heaven) was take away our shame (see Romans 9:33). Shame is “the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, ridiculous, etc., done by oneself or another.” So, shame is a feeling. Well I can understand how there is no shame in being a sinner in the eternal sense, but what about the daily stuff that goes on in the life of a believer?

There was a classic Peanuts cartoon I enjoyed when I was a kid. Linus (I think it was) asks Charlie Brown why we were put here on Earth. Charlie Brown replies, “so that we can make others happy.” Linus then asks, “why were the others put here?”

The point is that we aren’t lone rangers striving for perfection in our pursuit of the holy life. We do have each other — and we exist all for the same reasons. I believe those reasons are to first give pleasure to God by knowing His Son, Jesus Christ. The second is to “spur each other on toward love and good deeds” (Hebrews 10:24). And there is a very practical way in which we do this called holding accountability.

To hold accountability means to make sure that if somebody says they’re going to do something, make sure they do it. We don’t do this out of spite or any kind of a sense of superiority. Rather, we do this because we care for each other — and it is ideally what we would like somebody to do for us as well. At Crossroads Church, our leaders and hold each other accountable for five very specific things. We came up with this because these five things have often resulted in shame for Christians and the greater body of Christ. The five things listed in the form of five questions we ask each other when we meet as a leadership team:

1. Have you indulged in sexual sin this week? The idea here is that all sin is bad, but sexual sin is especially shameful for leaders in churches. Sexual sin is any sin that causes us to deviate from God’s best in this area. It is a very individual thing — each person is a little different with regard to what they struggle with. The point is to be generally specific, meaning that it would be easy to split hairs on technicalities here. Sexual sin is bad. Period. But we sometimes like to pretend that we’re doing better than we actually are.

2. Are you doing anything that makes you vulnerable? This is a catch-all question that closes the loophole regarding the “sins not yet committed.” Yeah, we might be without sin (sexual sin, etc.) — but we’re flirting pretty closely with that hairy line between being technically correct and jumping completely overboard. This is also a good heads-up question to cause us to think about the kinds of situations we are finding ourselves in, and hopefully adjusting as needed to stay pure.

3. Are you meeting regularly with God? This question goes way beyond just having a daily “quiet time.” The point here is whether or not we are trusting God with our day-to-day decisions, cares, concerns, joys, etc. Yeah, time in the Word is good, but time fellowshipping with God and hanging out with Him is way better.

4. Have you been a testimony to the greatness of God in your words and actions this week? Christians are good at being good when they need to be. This question causes us to seek to be good all the time, because every word and action is an opportunity to be a witness to God’s love and faithfulness — and to not be a jerk.

5. Have you been faithful to your calling to be a leader in God’s Church? This is a hard one, for sure. At Crossroads, our elders/pastors are all part-time. We work a job during the week, and lead the church on the weekends. At least that’s how we DON’T want things to be. Our job is to be leaders in God’s Church. Our income is based on our vocation. We have to keep this in mind, otherwise things just won’t get done for the church.

That’s the short version, for sure. I think the general idea is that we all have those weak areas in our lives that we can’t control by ourselves. By being open and honest and seeking out Christian brothers and sisters to hold accountability with us, we stand a much better chance of not bringing shame upon ourselves. And we also stand a much better chance of being a better witness to what God is all about.