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The last few decades have seen the rise of many gifted church leaders who have successfully
grown large churches. Their successes have resulted in huge amounts of trust placed on them.
They operate as senior leaders in local churches with sole authority in many instances.
Unfortunately, some of them have fallen into sin. This has given rise to greater attention to the
issue of accountability. In this post, we bring you Part 1 of 3 on this subject written by James
Loke.
Biblical Accountability
Biblical accountability is universal. Every Christian, after his life on earth, will account to the
Lord Jesus regarding his stewardship of the gifts, talents and all that was entrusted to him in his
lifetime.
Accountability comes with the role of Christian leadership. Those who take up Christian
leadership embrace a responsibility to serve the Lord together with those they are serving with.
The leader, implicitly or explicitly, can expect his life and actions to become fair game for public
scrutiny. It is also expected of him to explain his decisions and actions if called upon to do so. In
other words, a Christian leader has to be accountable by embracing responsibility, being
transparent and answerable.
In this context, accountability is more than responsibility. For example, a care group leader
can be responsible and finish all the tasks assigned to him but he may not be too concerned
about how the work is done nor how it is viewed by others. One can be responsible yet not
accountable. Accountability is an individually held sense of duty to account to others for one’s
assignments.
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Biblical Leadership Functions with Accountability
Last Updated Saturday, 15 August 2009 16:30
God’s idea is for plurality in leadership so that they can sharpen one another. “As iron
sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” (Proverbs 27:17) Even godly leaders do need
some help. In a local church, a gifted teacher may emphasize too much on studying the Bible at
the expense of winning lost souls. But when that teacher is partnered with an evangelist, the
burden of winning lost souls is transmitted to the congregation as well.
We thank Ian Foley, Prakich Treetasayudh and Wilson Lim who provided valuable comments
to an earlier draft of this article.
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