How to keep a brother accountable
by | Posted on July 9th in Maturity, Pastors thoughts, Resources
Hey guys, imagine this… A Christian brother confesses to you that he struggles to keep his eyes away from internet porn. Then he asks you to help keep him accountable… what does that mean? What does that look like? Here are some tips.
- Decide if you really can take on the responsibility of keeping him accountable.
You might really want to help him, but if you’re over worked, and unable to keep up your side of the deal, you need to be honest and insist he ask someone else. Give him some suggestions, and give him 7 days to ask someone else, and then check he really has asked someone else. - Check that he’s not ditching a previous accountability relationship because he failed.
Some guys will bounce from one “confidante” to another every time they fall. Encourage them to go back to the last guy they admitted their problem to, and deal with it properly. If that guy isn’t up to the task of keeping him accountable, then offer to help. - Decide if you want to make yourself accountable to him too.
A two-way accountability relationship is usually healthier. It means that you can both be honest with each other, and share in each others trials and burdens. But this isn’t always available. Be honest if you’re not going to ask him for the same level of accountability. - Encourage him to install internet logging and/or filtering software
If he’s serious about wanting to beat his sin, then don’t let him weasel out of taking the first step and installing something like CovenantEyes. Don’t let him say “But I could get around that easily!”. That’s beside the point. Encourage him to take an active step to cut down the ease of access and secrecy. If he’s not prepared to do that, then it might be worth challenging him about whether he’s really serious about stopping his sin. - SMS when in distress
Software only places a barrier at the “point of contact”. What God really wants is for us to not “want” to sin like that. Therefore make a covenant (an agreed promised relationship) with the guy so that he will SMS you at the very moment when his sinful nature thinks of a way to look at porn. Day or night. And you can promise to pray for him then and there and follow it up later by asking him how he went. - Pray and Pry
When the guy SMSs you saying that he’s feeling tempted or is going to be in a tempting circumstance, ask God to give him strength to endure. And then, have the guts to pry into his life and ask him how he went. You might even want to call him an hour after the SMS to check that he’s holding on ok. But whatever you do, don’t chicken out and “forget” to ask him about it later. Its worth risking the relationship for. 
Celebrate God’s work
If your mate’s gone a few weeks, or months without needing to SMS you, and you’ve checked to make sure he’s keeping honest with you, celebrate God’s work in his life. Seriously, that is a miracle! Go out for the night, have meal together or with the family (only he and you needs to know why) and praise the God who changes us little by little, every day. There will be days to mourn together - but don’t forget to praise God together.
Ok, that’s some tips if someone asks you to help keep them accountable. Any other suggestions would be helpful if you want to leave comments… But in the mean time, there are some more good resources here:
- Breaking the Cycle of Porn Addiction - a helpful article that helps us see when and why we fail
- Porn Again Christian - an online book by Mark Driscoll (careful… probably rated “MA”)
- Taking accountability to the next level - Thinking seriously about keeping a mate accountable
- Too Sinful to Pray? - a short article I’ve written dealing with the effect of sin on our relationship with God