 Besides trying to figure out the basic tasks of ministry — how to proclaim the gospel to a community, how to form disciples for Jesus Christ, and how to pursue God's justice and compassion in a ministry setting — a new United Methodist pastor also has to navigate
the labyrinthine structure of our church's ordination process. The first three years after commissioning into ministry, called the "probationary period," can be intimidating. There are physical and psychological exams to take, meetings to attend, deadlines to meet, and papers to write.
But increasingly, annual conferences are also including an element to the ordination process that is greeted positively by the new clergy: that of mandatory accountability groups. They can go by different forms, including groups consisting solely of new clergy, groups with newer clergy and more experienced clergy together, groups containing various combinations of deacons and elders, and groups featuring both clergy and laity together.
In my first appointment as a campus minister, I found myself placed in a "clergy peer group" as a part of my ordination process. This group included an experienced clergy mentor, together with three probationary elders and two probationary deacons. We met monthly; and at these meetings, each person had to "give an account" of how his walk with Christ had fared in the previous month, how his ministry was going, and what joys and pains he had experienced in his personal life.
My own experience with mutual accountability in divinity school was through a Covenant Discipleship Group. And while this clergy peer group did not follow the CD model exactly, it did stand in the same spirit of a healthy, Wesleyan approach to spiritual formation. Like Wesley's bands and class meetings, modern accountability groups usually require practices of offering a personal witness, mutual encouragement, commitment to growth in discipleship, and common
prayer and devotion.
The foundation for discipleship that I found in CD Groups back in divinity school was only strengthened during my first appointment. In addition to serving as an important part of my ordination process, my clergy peer group helped all involved to become grounded in the practice of mutual accountability as an aid to our daily discipleship.
In 2003, I prepared to move to my present appointment in Searcy, Arkansas. And soon I found myself once again with the opportunity to be a part of a mutual accountability group.
A week before I loaded up my moving van, I received a call from Greg Geroy, who was to be one of my new parishioners. "I've got a couple of guys here, and we would really like to be part of a men's small group," Greg said. "Would you be interested in helping us get that started?"
"Well, sure," I said. "Have you ever heard of Covenant Discipleship?"
"Nope," Greg said. "What's that?"
"I'll let you know when I get there," I said.
Within a couple of months, Greg and I with two other men had formed the first CD Group in my new church's history. We have since added another member, and the five of us — bound together by our faith and our covenant — have come
to see our weekly meeting as the bedrock of our discipleship.
The means of grace are those ordinary ways that God pours extraordinary grace into our lives. I have experienced Covenant Discipleship and other forms of mutual accountability as just such a means of grace. They offer strength,
support, and sustenance for the graceful growth of daily discipleship. And in that sense, they have the ability to turn ordinary believers into extraordinary disciples for Jesus Christ!
••••
The Rev. Andrew C.Thompson is the Associate Pastor at First United
Methodist Church, Searcy, Arkansas.
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