Friends to Die For
July 1, 1996
Ministry can be lonely at times. What does it take to build honest, accountable, and encouraging friendships?
Everyone says you ought to have it. The word accountability has become something worse than a cliche. Despite the talk, though, most pastors still struggle to find authentic accountability.
Two pastors and a Christian artist from Nashville, Tennessee, have it, though they eschew the word.
Scotty Smith is pastor of Christ Community Church (PCA) in Franklin, Tennessee. In 1986, he led a team of ten couples to plant the church, where many Christian artists in the Nashville area attend.
Scott Roley is an associate pastor at Christ Community. He oversees about fifty small-group fellowships spread throughout three counties. In addition, he is a Christian musician who began his career in the mid-seventies with the folk/rock group, Albrecht, Roley & Moore.
Michael Card is known as Christian music's resident biblical scholar. He has sold more than two million albums, including the gold-certified lullaby album, Sleep Sound in Jesus. After a self-imposed exile from the Christian music scene, he has recently released with John Michael Talbot Brother to Brother. He attends Christ Community Church.
Leadership editors Dave Goetz and Ed Rowell flew to Nashville to find out what a real accountability group looks like. With their blue jeans and Birkenstock sandals with white athletic socks. Smith and Roley looked more like Southern Californians than southern pastors. Card showed up wearing a Promise Keepers sweatshirt, with a cellular phone in his back pocket.
You don't call your three-way relationship an accountability group. Why?
Scotty Smith: This is a covenant. This is friendship. This is community. And, yeah, it has the dynamic of accountability, ...
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