John Wesley's 22 Accountability Questions...

(a note I wrote to my staff this morning)

I remember taking a class on the formation of the Methodist Church and the roots of the Wesleyan faith.  I read about and we studied John Wesley’s early life and ministry, as well as the influence of his brother and mother in his spiritual development.  I remember them sharing with us a list of questions that his Life Group—mocked by others as “The Holy Club”— would regularly talk through to make discipleship and growth and transformation very intentional and personal.  It’s easy to just think everyone is in a journey of self-examination and self-discovery, but I’m sensing more and more that people are adrift as it relates to being challenged spiritually and they need to be asked probing questions in order to jump start their hearts to consider how they might be more surrendered to the Lord and made into HIs image.  I know that I’ve been thinking about this lately a bit more for some reason, probably because some of my disciplines have stuttered and my habits have been too mindless…less deliberate than I would like for sure.

It’s easy to read this list and see a legalistic document, but it’s all the spirit of how you approach these questions that are prompters to take a moral inventory of your soul and the habits that are becoming normalized.  Our habits become our habitat, so it’s important to construct the habits of action and thought that you long to define you and your reputation.  If I don’t know where I’m going, I struggle to know how to evaluate whether I’m getting anywhere.  As one person said, “Aim at nothing and you’ll hit it every time.”  As we lead our families and ministries, our depth of devotion and discipline to what we believe really makes a difference in “making disciples”.  Disciples aren’t born, they are made.  They don’t just happen, they are created with effort.  Our own discipleship as well as the mandate of God to make disciples must stay on our radar, and the Great Commission in Matthew 28 talks of making disciples and “teaching them to obey” everything Jesus commanded.  It’s that part that is more scholastic and practical.  This is where things can get legalistic, but without a teaching toward obedience, people make up their own track of Christian growth.  They make their own map.

Anyway…this is the list that John Wesley and his buddies came up with to hold their feet to the fire and to seek to become more and more like Jesus, the one who demonstrated perfectly a life of grace and truth.

We can talk about this in the coming weeks.  It is my desire that we can retreat sometime this year to talk more deeply about this and a couple other things on my heart for you guys.  I long for us to see our own hearts and the hearts of our families and ministries revitalized as we pro-actively seek to walk in step with God’s Spirit throughout each day.  

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In 1729, while John Wesley was a student at Oxford, he started a small group with his brother Charles. It was soon mockingly dubbed “The Holy Club" by some of his fellow collegians. The club members rigorously self-examined themselves everyday by asking the following 22 questions:

1. Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I really am? In other words, am I a hypocrite?

2. Am I honest in all my acts and words, or do I exaggerate?

3. Do I confidentially pass on to others what has been said to me in confidence?

4. Can I be trusted?

5. Am I a slave to dress, friends, work or habits?

6. Am I self-conscious, self-pitying, or self-justifying?

7. Did the Bible live in me today?

8. Do I give the Bible time to speak to me every day?

9. Am I enjoying prayer?

10. When did I last speak to someone else of my faith?

11. Do I pray about the money I spend?

12. Do I get to bed on time and get up on time?

13. Do I disobey God in anything?

14. Do I insist upon doing something about which my conscience is uneasy?

15. Am I defeated in any part of my life?

16. Am I jealous, impure, critical, irritable, touchy or distrustful?

17. How do I spend my spare time?

18. Am I proud?

19. Do I thank God that I am not as other people, especially as the Pharisees who despised the publican?

20. Is there anyone whom I fear, dislike, disown, criticize, hold a resentment toward or disregard? If so, what am I doing about it?

21. Do I grumble or complain constantly?

22. Is Christ real to me?

These were forged by this collection of guys almost 300 years ago, and though some of the wording is archaic, I’m amazed how down to earth this list really is.  It seems to encompass some really critical categories of life seeking to inject joy in the discipline, rather than settling for stoic obedience alone. (examples: ‘Am I enjoying prayer’, ‘Did the Bible live in me today’, ‘Is Christ real to me?’)  I’m sure this could probably be condensed, but there is something about these 22 Christians that still ring fairly true, though I wouldn’t go so far as someone I know to call them the 22 Irreducible Questions of the Christian Life or anything.

I found myself asking--after praying together last week together at our Department Head Meeting--if we are intentional enough as a staff to come back to a “tuning fork” like this with each other as well as our teams.  Most people just need handlebars to follow Christ…they don’t know what to do if they aren’t guided.  This isn’t the end all, but this is a pretty practical place to start, even as a more seasoned believer.

I hope you guys had a great 4th of July are enjoying the summer thus far.  Pray for Haley as she prepares to speak this weekend on the Wonder Woman of Scripture, Deborah.  She’s gonna bring the thunder!

Love you guys…

Jason