Summer School: Accounting 101

My beloved Yankees have a problem: They suck.

Mired in fourth place in their division, six games below .500 (which is not good, in case you don’t follow win-loss records), and recipients of boos and catcalls from the hometown fans, the Bronx Bombers this season have done little well, and that which they have done well, they have not done consistently. They’re a team with a payroll perhaps three times the average of all other Major League Baseball franchises, but with a performance level that would be hard-pressed to win a seed in the NCCA’s College World Series.

I moan about my team’s horrors in order to applaud its response to them.

* The general manager says, From ownership I asked for and received complete control of the team. We’re not producing, so it’s on me.
* The manager says, Don’t blame the general manager only. He and I put this team together. I accept as much responsibility as anyone.
* Players say, Don’t blame the manager or the front office. We’re the ones on the field. We’re the people swinging and missing, pitching and giving up runs.

* The owner, George Steinbrenner, says, The players, manager, and general manager are all correct; blame them.... Oh well, can’t have everything.

While I am frustrated with my team’s performance, I admire their implementation of accountability, their willingness to accept responsibility for their actions. To be accountable doesn’t mean being a sacrificial lamb, but it does mean owning your place and its consequences in the world, it means you recognize that what you do and say matters. The Yanks are doing that...and precious little else.


Accountability is a challenge in our society. It’s hard to get people to accept responsibility for their actions when prevailing social standards permit and expect dismissal of failures as a products of bad childhoods, physical disrepair, or other personal trauma. It’s not that outside agents don’t affect us, but rather that we lose core independence and individuality when we cede final say over to them. An accountable life acknowledges but also owns its contributing influences; an unaccountable life surrenders to them.

What does an accountable Christian life look like? Spiritual honesty enforced by practical action. When’s the last time you did a thorough spiritual audit? When’s the last time you examined your heart, your relationship with God, your connection to Jesus, with something resembling objective dispassion? When’s the last time you accounted for all aspects of your spiritual life, both healthy and unhealthy?

Make it harder: When’s the last time you made such an accounting to another person? Perhaps your significant other, but just as acceptable, to a spiritual friend? When’s the last time you acknowledged to another person the failures (and successes) of your faith walk?

Our general board has created an accountability group, people who have agreed to make changes in their actions in and attitudes about our congregation. We meet monthly to ask each other a simple question: You said you were going to (whatever). How are you doing with that? Because we know each other well, the question produces honest, if at times uncomfortable, disclosures. An accountable Christian life requires spiritual honesty, which is much more likely if we have one or more accountability partners.

Such mechanics are important, but what matters more than anything is a confessional heart, a decision to accept responsibility for our lives. Are you there yet? When you survey the terrain of your life, do you see destruction of your own creation, or rather the ravages of invading marauders? Do you see damage you can repair, because you’re the one who inflicted it? Or brokenness you can only mourn, not mend?

Personally, I probably talk a better brand of accountability than I live. Though I am moving in the right direction, I suspect there are many wounds in my life for which I have blamed mere accessories, when in fact I was the principal culprit. In the couple of weeks I of vacation that began for me today, I expect to take a pretty intense personal inventory.


I started this piece talking about my beloved Yankees. I close talking about my own journey. Substitute your own team/interest and your personal story, then when you discover something, tell somebody.

You and I have a lot to account for.


Pray with me:
God, hold me close, but also hold me responsible. Don’t let me excuse myself, but also don’t let me harass myself. Lead me to relationships of consequence, relationships of honesty and accountability. Let me be for someone else the honest, gracious, Jesus-like source of truth and hope that I myself seek. In the name of Jesus I pray, Amen.