Accountability That Makes Sense
Paul Cedar
The line between legitimate and illegitimate accountability is sometimes blurry. Nonetheless, it does us well to try to determine when that line has been crossed.
—Paul Cedar
Several years ago, I pastored a church that became involved in a dispute initiated by one of our neighbors. We thought the neighbor both unreasonable and inaccurate in his charges. And if we acceded to his wishes, it was going to cost us a great deal of money.
The church's leaders asked me to sit down with him. When I did, I began, "We at the church are grieved to hear we're having these misunderstandings. I can't promise to solve them, but I want to listen and help in every way possible."
After discussing the issue without progress, I finally said, "Our Lord clearly told us to be good neighbors. Although we think your request is unreasonable, it seems to us that if anyone needs to compromise in this dispute, it's us. Obeying the Lord is more important to us than winning a fight."
Well, you never saw a man's attitude change so quickly. Within two hours we had resolved everything. Sometime later the mayor, whom we had asked to help adjudicate the dispute, called and said, "I don't know what you said or what you did, but this man thinks you're the greatest church on earth."
Not only did we gain favor with this action, we never paid the money that was originally requested. When our relationship became right, our neighbor's attitude became right. What enabled that to happen was the strong sense of accountability the leaders felt toward our community.
Not only are churches accountable to others, but so are pastors. Biblically we are to be accountable to God, to the Christian community, and, in some ways, to civic government and the community in which we minister. ...
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