Last fall I ran into a ministry peer I hadn’t seen for quite some time, although we communicate by phone or e-mail often. “The T.H. thing scared the heck out of me!” he said. I was perplexed. “You know. T. H. Ted Haggard.”

Ah yes, I do know. I told my friend it scared the heck out of me, too.

“The T.H. thing” should serve as a wake-up call to us all. Even though we may be loving and serving God, temptation and sin are very, very real. I’ve gotten to the point in my life where I recognize the foolishness and hypocrisy of responding to high-profile moral failures with self-righteous disgust and a wagging finger. I recognize the foolishness because in that moral failure I recognize me. Name a sin or name a temptation, and, whether I choose to admit it or not, deep down inside I know that at the very least I’m vulnerable.

Slip-Sliding Away

Talking about “the T.H. thing” with my friend reminded me of a few truths.

The temptations that toy with our sin natures every day (lust, pride, materialism, covetousness, just to name a few) are best kept in check when we recognize their presence. Not only that, though. We need to confess them to a group of trusted friends who are willing to listen and hold us accountable.

In addition, my friend and I discussed how easy it is to slowly slip away from accountability while lying to ourselves, telling ourselves “I can handle it” or “I’ll never_____ (fill in the blank with the sin du jour).” All the Christians I’ve ever known who have experienced moral failure didn’t start out with bad inten­tions. Rather, they slipped into believing the lies while avoiding accountability. It wasn’t until they were flat on their faces and facing the long and painful process of standing up and dusting off that they realized how wrong and unguarded they’d been.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “The Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth.” (Quoted in Letters to a Student: Encouraging Words from a Christian Mentor, Donald J. Drew [Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2003], 27.) How true.

Accountability for Life

So I’ve been thinking a lot more about fostering accountability—not only in my own life but also in the lives of our stu­dents. They need to graduate from our youth ministries seeking and embracing accountability as a necessary component to a healthy relationship with Christ—for the rest of their lives.

The emerging generation of middle and high school-age students we minister to is marked by a longing for Christian community. Yet when they leave our youth groups to head off to college or else­where, many turn their backs on the Christian community they’ve been a part of. They turn to a peer community that celebrates the temptations and sins that invade and disrupt a relationship with Christ. And because this is happening during the crucial young adult years where life-long values, attitudes, and behaviors are formed, the results can be devastating to one’s spiritual health—both now and for the rest of life.

‘Hold Me Accountable, Please’

What’s necessary to build in effective accountability with today’s middle and high school students so that they would be ready to embrace continued account­ability during their crucial college years?

I fear that far too many of our churches discourage accountability by separating the young from the old. For example, when we remove kids from corporate worship and put them into a parallel “youth worship” setting, we are not only removing the opportunity to connect intergenerationally, but we are promot­ing the attitude that adults are old-fash­ioned, out-of-touch, and not worth listening to. Instead, we should be giving students the opportunity to rub elbows with the diverse spectrum of people with­in the body of Christ, including those whose age and experience makes them a valuable resource because they are older and wiser.

While this might seem like a pie-in­the-sky dream, it’s a dream worth pur­suing. Imagine what could happen if every young person in the middle and high school ministry had some adult other than Mom and Dad who cared enough to stay in touch, spend time together, share experiences, and talk about life in God’s world.

As we open up, interact, listen to, and submit to one another, we can encourage and point each other to paths that lead to spiritual growth, and away from paths that lead to spiritual shipwreck.

Accountability is a two-way street. When those who are older, wiser, and more experienced in following Christ are willing to share their own temptations, sins, and struggles—both past and present—  those who are young in age and faith are freed up not only to struggle but struggle in the context of an account­ability relationship. Honesty breeds honesty, and honesty is crucial to effec­tive accountability.

All human beings are in process, espe­cially when it comes to spiritual growth. In addition, all human beings are sinful. All of our lives have been a combination of spiritual steps forward and spiritual steps backward. Still, God has promised and shown grace. The same grace should be shown to one another as we rejoice in victory, and grieve over sin.

Mutual accountability relationships aren’t to be entered into and pursued for only a season. Instead, they take years to develop. There will be ups and downs along the way. And, making the invest­ment through a student’s middle and high school years will pay great divi­dends when that relationship continues through the college years.

Of course “the T.H. thing” should scare the heck out of us. But it also should serve to scare accountability into us. I need it. You need it. Your students need it. The scriptures tell us to submit to one another, to confess our sins to one anoth­er, and to pray for another. That’s what happens in a culture of accountability. Now is the time for us to teach our Christian students—through our words and example—to repeatedly plead, “Hold me accountable, please.”

 -Walt Mueller is the founder and president of the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding (www.cpyu.org). He is the author of several books, including Engaging the Soul of Youth Culture: Bridging Teen Worldviews and Christian Truth and Understanding Today’s Youth Culture.