Accountability Both Ways...

I've been reading about accountability recently and the need for it in all areas of life, somewhere in my mind it connects with something Richard Rohr speaks about. He has some interesting 'If Only's' to consider within the context of Mark 9:34-35 "Anyone who wants to be the most important has to be the least important--the servant of all the others" 

  • If only the Church had shared Jesus' bias toward the bottom the past two thousand years! 
  • If only we had seriously believed him, how much sooner we would have seen the coming of peace and justice on this earth. 
  • If only we had truly listened to the Gospel, how differently Western history would have unfolded.

Instead, we have made easy and happy friends with power, prestige, perks, and possessions--even in the name of God and the Church. (Richard Rohr).

My wondering takes me to think about what inverted accountability would look like? To what degree do structures welcome and embrace accountability from outside their bureaucratic machinery? I was encouraged with a recent article that spoke of 'accountability of each other', that is something that I hope is more than an Utopian dream!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A bit of sally bashing....

Came across a good bit of Sally bashing over at salvationsoldiers I have to say we try and make sure that everything we raise goes into projects that build local community in Poplar but hopefully if you read this blog you get that sense anyway.
Read more

Lost Voices of Mission...Fred Brown

Image
Along the world famous Oxford street in London's Westend; nestled in among the classy frontage of designer shops there is almost an unnoticeable, unimpressive wooden door. It is more or less alongside The Regent Hall's main entrance onto the busyness of Oxford Street. People pass the wooden door oblivious to the equally unimpressive wooden steps that go up three storey's to what was Regent Hall's youth club. When I was 10 I played on these bare wooden steps totally unaware of the significance behind and upon which I played. Many years later I discovered a university youth work course - as an induction to Youth Work - stopped outside this insignificant wooden door to point out that Youth Work as we know it in the UK started behind this door. ...whether that be the surbanite flower people that flooded the Westend to express their free love; or the hard core drug community this unimpressive wooden door became the 'portal' that blurred encounter between church an...
Read more

Types of Christian Spirituality...

Image
It is easy to think and to limit ourselves to a single approach to Christian spirituality. A 'if it works for me it should work for you approach' tends to narrow our appreciation of other ways which actually impoverishes our experience of spirituality. Urban T. Holmes has developed a means of exploring spirituality and helps develop an appreciation through discovering links between spirituality, temperament and predisposition. The diagram illustrates his ideas together with potential inherent dangers. The vertical continuum speaks and helps us understand our relational orientation to God. This ranges from engaging with God through understanding and theological process to a more emotive response. Horizontally speaks of a persons preferred means of pursuing the spiritual life. Kataphtic speaks of affirmation and the need of something tangible in an individuals spirituality- this may take the form of worship, art, even imagination with the use of metaphors, symbols and images play...
Read more