In a previous post, I included John Wesley’s “Rules of the Band Societies.” The post ended up starting a conversation about online accountability, or “virtual” accountability. The conversation went in several different directions, but the conversation particularly stuck with Bart and he ultimately decided to start a blog that would be dedicated as a place where people could check in daily and post their successes, challenges, and requests for prayer.
I am going to participate in this group, and I would like to invite you to consider whether you would like to be involved too. I am excited about this because my interest in the blogosphere is above all else in whether this is a platform that can be used to encourage people to grow in their faith. I think an accountability blog would be a great place to first, be held personally accountable and second, to learn what works and what can be improved for online accountability.
If you are interested, check out the blog Bart created. Bart and I are the only two involved at this point. We would welcome your feedback and suggestions on how this would work better.
Here are some thoughts I have initially:
- the blog would multiply every time 9 people became involved. As soon as the 9th person joined, the blog would split into 4 and 5. Someone already in the group would agree to start and maintain the new blog. They would all use the same format, so starting it would be very easy.
- we would create a page with some basic information about each person in the group as a starting point for getting to know each other with each person’s email address so that we can check in if someone drops out for a few days.
- participants lift up what they want to be accountable for, it is not the other members job to try to root things out. we trust each other to be open as we feel led to be open about the room we have for growth.
- i haven’t mentioned this to Bart, but i would like to see covenanting to read Scripture daily and pray for group members be a basic commitment that we make for being a part of the group.
I anticipate that this will be fairly organic at first. We will evolve and improve things as we benefit from the collective wisdom of the folks who would like to participate.
How do you think this could be improved? Would you like to participate? (Even if you are not planning on participating, your feedback on what is good and what could be better about this idea would be greatly appreciated.)
Kevin M. Watson 
Kevin – This is fascinating. I do not think that I will join at this point, but am very interested in seeing how this develops. The web certainly makes the sharing public, but that may be part of the importance. This would not be a way to delve into deeper issues, unless of course it was a private blog – which would be possible. I like the idea of the record that the blog creates. This will make it easier to recall things from the past.
This is of particular interest as I am part of some conversations about what an internet campus might look like at Resurrection. This very concept is one which I have been thinking about…
Andrew – Thanks for the thoughts. I am bummed that you won’t be a part of it, but understand. I was just thinking before you commented that making it a private blog might be an important step in getting people to feel a bit more comfortable. I am thinking that it may be important to keep it a bit more public for awhile so people can have a clear sense of what we are doing.
What would you think of using “By attending upon all the ordinances of God” as a baseline covenant? Maybe the goal could be:
Weekly: attend public worship of God and fasting or abstinence
Daily: ministry of the word, family and private prayer, and searching the scriptures
As available: Supper of the Lord
That is an awesome idea. Maybe we could just incorporate the General Rules as the covenant. So that we covenant to do no harm, and we confess when we do. We covenant to do all the good that we can, and we confess when we fail to do the good that God has put in front of us. And we covenant to attend upon the ordinances of God as you have laid it out.
I love that idea!
As we get more into this, I think we should have the expectations for what you are agreeing to do in joining this clearly spelled out and we should have a way that someone would join the group, maybe by emailing one of us.
Doing this daily is really helping me to keep daily time with God as a priority. Thanks for starting this Bart.
Kevin – Well, you are making me think about it a little more… Let me keep thinking…
Andrew – No problem at all. I don’t mean to pressure you at all. This has been a learning experience for me and I am interested to see what the potential of this idea is. No matter what you decide, I will solicit your feedback on the process and organization.