Ministry can be lonely at times. What does it take to build honest, accountable, and encouraging friendships?
Everyone says you ought to have it. The word accountability has become something worse than a cliche. Despite the talk, though, most pastors still struggle to find authentic accountability.
Two pastors and a Christian artist from Nashville, Tennessee, have it, though they eschew the word.
Scotty Smith is pastor of Christ Community Church (PCA) in Franklin, Tennessee. In 1986, he led a team of ten couples to plant the church, where many Christian artists in the Nashville area attend.
Scott Roley is an associate pastor at Christ Community. He oversees about fifty small-group fellowships spread throughout three counties. In addition, he is a Christian musician who began his career in the mid-seventies with the folk/rock group, Albrecht, Roley & Moore.
Michael Card is known as Christian music’s resident biblical scholar. He has sold more than two million albums, including the gold-certified lullaby album, Sleep Sound in Jesus. After a self-imposed exile from the Christian music scene, he has recently released with John Michael Talbot Brother to Brother. He attends Christ Community Church.
Leadership editors Dave Goetz and Ed Rowell flew to Nashville to find out what a real accountability group looks like. With their blue jeans and Birkenstock sandals with white athletic socks. Smith and Roley looked more like Southern Californians than southern pastors. Card showed up wearing a Promise Keepers sweatshirt, with a cellular phone in his back pocket.
You don’t call your three-way relationship an accountability group. Why?
Scotty Smith: This is a covenant. This is friendship. This is community. And, yeah, it has the dynamic of accountability, because these two men can ask me anything; they hold me to the issues of life that the Scriptures define I must be about.
But accountability, to me, should be just a subset of good friendship. We don’t use the language, “This is an accountability group.” The language of accountability groups can be so artificial.
How did you meet?
Smith: In 1978, I was in Winston-Salem, on staff at First Presbyterian Church. Scott was still in his band, Albrecht, Roley & Moore, which was playing a concert for our youth ministry. We had that instant sense of “soul mate-ness.”
I knew I would be moving to Nashville to come on staff at First Presbyterian Church. When my wife and I arrived in
Nashville, I gave Scott a call. Our first day together, we played racquetball, showing each other how grossly inadequate we are at the sport. Afterward, we sat in the steam room buck naked, which is a metaphor for our relationship.
Michael Card: Male bonding in its highest form.
Smith: In the steam room, the first thing Scott said was, “If our relationship’s going to grow, I want you to know some things about me.” He proceeded to share about some recent damage to his soul. Scott and I never went through a pretending phase. We were longing to be known, which has been a hallmark of us three.
Scott Roley: One of the glues is the gospel that Scotty introduced me to: that it’s in our brokenness, weakness, and repentance that we will grow. Our friendship is a gift. It’s not something we created. Little did I know then that Scotty was in the same place, needing the same affirmation.
Card: The first time Scott and I met was in 1979; we were singing background vocals for a Williamson County Bank commercial. We hit it off.
Have you ever met regularly?
Roley: For a while we met every week with our families. Then we said, “Forget that.” We’ve gone through times that we all went fishing or did some other activity (though we never went back to racquetball).
When I was in the music business, Mike and I spent a lot of time together on the road. I played warm-up for Mike. What started as a twelve-date fall tour ended four years later.
All the while, Scotty was our pastor. When I stopped traveling with Mike, I came on staff at Christ Community.
Smith: Mike and Scott, and their wives, were two of the ten planting couples of this church. All of us were in a previous church together. The idea of planting a church emerged out of the small group we were in.
In January of 1986, I attended a church-planting seminar. The denomination said, “Scotty, we think you should plant a church.” I told the small group that the denomination said yes, but I said, “I don’t think I should plant a church.” They said, “Yes, you should.”
I will never forget one of Mike’s metaphors. He moved his arm like a saw in motion, saying, “We are going to build a church.” Only when these guys said, “Scotty, we think you should re-pray and think through planting a church,” did I reconsider it. In June of ’86, we planted Christ Community Church.
Would you share something with these friends that you would not share with your spouse?
Smith: My wife and I don’t have secrets from each other. But I can discuss dynamics of life with these guys that only guys who are married can really understand. It’s done in a way that propels me back into Darlene’s life to love her more faithfully.
Roley: Scotty’s wife, Darlene, and Michael’s wife, Susan, say to me, “Go be with Mike and Scotty.” My wife, Linda, pushes me out the door, saying, “Go be with Scotty and Mike. You always come back better. I don’t necessarily want to know all the details.”
Smith: Apart from the environment of friendship, accountability is not going to happen. We’re sharing life.
The three of us have been mentored by men who have fleshed out that reality. For Mike, a relationship he has with one of his professors. Bill Lane, a top New Testament scholar. For Scott and me, Jack Miller, my spiritual dad, who just this week went to be with the Lord.
Jack had mentored me for twenty-one years. The night Jack died, I went to see these two guys; they loved my broken heart.
What unique strengths does each of you bring?
Smith: One thing Mike brings to our relationship is brutal honesty. He doesn’t fake things well.
Mike has also brought into our relationship a level of angst. A lot of my recovery from pain and my growth in the gospel has been to stop seeing the Bible as a box of Band-aids to make the boo-boo go away. Mike has brought the gift of looking at and feeling the weight of that pain, which I think you have to do for friendship. We aren’t a mutual fix-up society.
Scott brings the passion. He is a radical, passionate encourager, and God has given him a unique gift that translates into not so much answers but presence. Scott gives you as much presence as any human being you’ve ever been with. You really feel heard and encouraged and loved.
Roley: Scotty brings devotional strength. He says, “I’m not strong devotionally.” But when he confesses weakness, it only shows he is devotionally strong and consistent. He rises early in the morning and spends time with the Lord.
Card: He gets up at 4:00 a.m. or some ungodly hour.
Roley: Mike brings spirituality; his ability is to take the Scriptures and make them real, and, as Scotty said, so honest. After we meet, I always come away thinking, I’m going to ponder this.
Scotty is also probably the most shy of us. Mike’s shy as well. I’m outgoing. Michael and Scotty do public things, singing and preaching in front of several thousand people; that’s when they’re most comfortable around people. But get either in a tight crowd, and they’d rather be alone.
What is an example of Michael’s brutal honesty?
Smith: The three of us were in Estes Park, Colorado, rock climbing. Mike shared a struggle about someone in his world who was difficult to love. He didn’t immediately say, “I know I should like this person … ” or “You guys stop and lay hands on me right now.” He shared it with such startling power.
I by nature can turn everything into a teaching session if I’m not careful—analyzing and dissecting it.
Card: That’s also part of the strength you bring, though, because you help us ground all of our ideas. Scotty’s probably the person most familiar not only with Scripture but with practically everything else that has been written around it.
Have you ever had conflict?
Roley: We have mutual respect for one another. I don’t think I’ve ever had cross words with you [turning to Michael].
Card: I threw you off the bus once.
Roley: And said, “Get the hell out of here.”
Card: But it wasn’t you I was mad at. We’d been on the road for a long time, and I was driving the bus.
Roley: I’m joking. It was in the context of something else.
Card: I was really mad.
Roley: You were? Anyway, we don’t sit around and argue. We have, I think, points of disappointment and frustration with each other. But we come to the table thinking, We’re here together for the rest of our lives. So that’s settled.
Card: With my wife, most arguments are bad communication and misunderstanding. We’re so much alike heartwise that stuff doesn’t pile up. It’s the same with the three of us. If there were an occasion for an argument, it would be because one or more of us was being some kind of a hardhead.
Roley: Back in 1990, I wanted to go to some event that would have brought me into contact with a relationship from my past, and it was clearly wrong for me to go. So I hid my idea of going.
It came out in a conversation with Scotty that I was planning to go to this event. So Scotty told Michael, and they both said, “You’re not going to this event.” It really hurt. I didn’t roll over easily and say, “You’re right.”
Mike’s response was, “No way.” Scotty said, “Well, we need to pray about this because … ” Which just goes to show their personalities. But in the end, even Scotty said, “Why would you jeopardize what’s important to you to do this?”
Card: Often for me my motivation for not deceiving these guys is not personal righteousness; it’s because I don’t want to be caught by Scotty or Scott. They know me best, and they’ll catch me first. Which I guess is the essence of why accountability is so important.
But also, they’re the two guys I respect most in the world, the two people I don’t want to disappoint.
Smith: The pain of love is stronger than the pain of legalism. If this were just an accountability group that had a list of things to check off, we could say, “I blew it,” and move on. But because we love each other, the pain that goes with damaging that friendship is more telling. That’s why accountability groups have to constantly monitor legalism and moralism, because if they’re not driven by the grace of the gospel, they become idol factories.
How have you carried each other?
Roley: A couple of Christmases ago, Mike went through a dark night of the soul.
Card: I don’t remember that.
Roley: It was the night you got on your motorcycle and rode to Florida.
Card: I remember now. I almost had a nervous breakdown. My wife called Scotty and Scott first: “Pray for Mike.” I was scheduled to do a concert in Tampa, Florida, and the back-up musicians and I generally rode on the bus. But I said, “I’ve got to be alone.” I jumped on my motorcycle and rode at high speeds all night, nonstop from Nashville to Tampa in the rain.
Roley: I worried all night. But the Lord met you on your motorcycle, protected you. Out of that experience, Michael wrote a song that has helped me many times since.
I don’t want to pretend as if in our relationship everything comes out easy. It doesn’t. Some situations are difficult and leave us with no answers and more questions.
How does the group handle the pressures Scotty faces as senior pastor?
Card: I don’t know of any time when Scotty has broken a confidence. He’ll say, “I’m having trouble with a particular person in this area.” That’s usually as far as the details go. I’ve never known the name or the specific situation of anything he does pastorally.
Yet in the pulpit, Scotty is so transparent.
Do you ever feel he is too open?
Card: I’ve been embarrassed for him. But I never thought he was too open.
Roley: There are times when he has said, “Man, I’m enamored with myself,” or “Pray for my self-righteousness. I’m building the wrong kingdom.” Scotty has a great picture of who he is; he sees himself as a big sinner.
We’re all trying to resist being someone who sucks up to the system, makes a living off the faith, and builds his own kingdom, whether as a church pastor, an associate pastor, or a Christian artist.
Smith: Every single pastor, every single platform person with a microphone in his or her hand, learns pragmatically what works. And “transparency” works.
These guys have forced me to realize the difference between transparency and vulnerability. I can get in the pulpit and be transparent, yet if I didn’t have authentic relationships, it would not represent true vulnerability.
Roley: Our church facility seats about 600. We’ve got five services. Recently we have been praying about what to do. Scotty recently said no to a program that would have built a $25-million building. He said, “I feel uncomfortable being at the helm of something like this.” He’s able to confess to us his fears of being put into too big a position.
How do you hold each other accountable to the issues of power?
Smith: If I weren’t in community with these guys, it wouldn’t take long for me to pretend that I am my gifts.
Card: I think you [looking at Roley] had trouble seeing your gifts that are so obvious to the rest of us.
Roley: That has been a lifesaver to me. My wife, as much as she loves me, really can’t do that for me. The people I’m discipling, as much as they may love me, can’t do it for me.
But these two guys, as peers, who have accepted me unconditionally, have helped to define me. I can’t say no to their definition.
Scott, how have you helped Michael and Scotty see that they are not their gifts?
Roley: They know I’m like lead weight hanging around their necks. If Scotty, for example, started believing he were the greatest preacher in the world, the weight of our relationship would hold him back.
Card: Either one of us would hold him back.
Roley: The beauty of our relationship, though, is that I say to him, “Scotty, you’re the best preacher I’ve ever heard.” I say to Mike, “You’re the best song writer I’ve ever heard.”
But at the same time, if Mike ever felt he deserved a Grammy, it wouldn’t take long for Scotty and me to counter, “Who are you fooling? Cut the crap. You’re a brother who has been gifted by the Lord.”
How do you hold each other accountable in the area of sexual purity?
Roley: I have said to these guys, “Here is the name of a woman I’m sexually attracted to. If you see me talking to this person longer than ‘Hi, how are you?’ then you need to bust me. Throw your arm around me and say, ‘Scott, what’s the scoop?'”
Smith: Several years ago a woman I was counseling was being unduly forward, sharing a lot of intimate information about her bizarre sexual lifestyle. It felt as if she were coming onto me. I didn’t name the person but said, “Guys, I’m not beyond being really stupid. This is what is going on.”
Card: Neither one of us knows who that person is. Scotty never breaks a confidence.
Roley: There may come a point where you have to say who it is. But we didn’t force Scotty to tell us the woman’s name; by telling us the situation, Scotty was saying, “Everything is okay.” But if we felt his emotional tank were emptying, we’d say, “Okay, Scotty, who is she? Are you spending time with her?”
Smith: I think we all know ourselves well enough to realize that for us a physical affair would happen only after certain compromises. So in the instance of the woman who was sharing too much with me, these guys needed to hear my confession to see if there were an emotional shift within me that would make me more vulnerable.
Have any of you noticed this shift in another?
Card: There have been times when I’ve had to say, “I need help, guys.” It might not be best to share that with your wife; nothing has happened. And probably nothing is going to happen (and not, by the way, because we’re so righteous, but because we’re all chickens; we’re afraid of being busted.)
Roley: We’ve actually traveled to where one of us was staying on the road because of a difficult situation. We’ve purposed to be together in order to protect each other.
Smith: This past fall I was on the Young Messiah tour as its pastor. I was alone in these fancy hotel rooms with every conceivable movie. So naturally we ask each other, “What are you watching, seeing, listening to, reading?”
Our proclivity to pander while we are alone will always be there.
Card: One of our basic mottoes is, “I’m on your side, right or wrong. Even if you’re wrong, I’m still on your side.”
Smith: We’re probably more committed to holding each other accountable for believing the gospel than simply the specifics of what we do. Issues such as sexuality and power are ancillary. Our relationship is centered on the gospel. The issues of life just naturally emerge. Michael, how did this group help you decide to take a hiatus from the music scene?
Card: I used to tour all year long, 150 concerts a year. The board saw that and said, “This is sin.” Actually, I think it was Scotty who first said that. So I now tour in the spring and fall, about 60 concerts a year.
Did you bristle at his forthrightness?
Card: No. I was glad for someone else to say that.
Roley: Mike definitely has gifts in songwriting, but if you haven’t heard Mike Card teach, then you really haven’t heard him in what may be his primary gift. His teaching gift is remarkable. We’re looking forward to the day he’ll be teaching as part of our staff.
Part of our friendship is helping him to make right decisions so he doesn’t burn out—or end up on that motorcycle again.
Do you monitor each other’s busyness?
Card: Scott’s the main one. “The need is not the call”—that’s our motto for Scott.
Roley: Not long ago my wife and I were in an adopting mode, in which we kind of saw our value by how many children we could adopt. We started adopting kids—we’ve adopted three out of our five.
When an opportunity came to adopt another, these guys said, “Forget it. You’re going to kill yourself.” That was difficult to hear. Their caution was helpful, though, in helping me see the bigger picture.
Is the subject of drivenness a theme you constantly come back to?
Roley: I don’t think Scotty and Mike could do what they do if they weren’t driven somewhat. But I don’t define them as driven men. I think of them as men who are clearly called. That’s what releases them to enjoy what they’re doing.
The times they’re not enjoying their work may be simply what they call the consequences or the cost of a call.
Card: Until you said that, Scott, I would have said, “Yeah, I’m driven,” because I work myself into the ground. Perhaps you have the more gracious point of view.
I hope what I do is in response to my call. After fifteen years, I still feel as if I’m called to what I do. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve understood more the breadth of my calling, including primarily my commitment to my family and these two guys. That commitment enables me to do whatever ministry it is I do.
I still do too much.
Smith: All three of our wives would say, as only a wife can say, “These are driven men.” But there seem to be seasons of life; when I helped plant Christ Community, I was far more driven than now.
The phase I’m in now, however, is that certain things just don’t present themselves as idols as much as they used to. Each of us has known a certain level of celebrity, but we have almost a “been there, done that” sort of attitude. I’ve had colleagues say, “Why don’t you take more advantage of this or that?” but I think, Why? I’ve got two good friends to walk with. I don’t need to do everything. I don’t need to go to that conference and speak.
Perhaps we’re just seeing a certain amount of God’s sanctifying influence in us. I hope as our wives read this article, they’ll affirm that.
What has your friendship taught you about accountability?
Roley: As I listen to us, I feel as if there are still things hidden in our lives that will remain hidden. We can’t fully be known. These two will never know everything about me. Perhaps there’s a myth about the level of openness one can have with another person, in which every little thing is searched out. I’m just too big a sinner for Scotty and Michael to know me fully.
Yet these two know me well enough that if I said, “I have a deep secret,” they would know exactly what it was without my confessing it. In some ways, they know me better than I know myself. So it’s not so much the amount of the knowledge as it is. Can they see into my soul?
Card: It’s a myth that accountability can occur outside of community. Accountability does not come before community.
Smith: It’s also a myth that if I’m in the right accountability group, it’s going to feel like a spiritual orgasm, that every time we get together we’ll know the shekinah glory of God. That’s a perversion of community. There are so many seasons of relationship. Sometimes, you will feel a sense of mission, such as our building a church together.
Other times it’s just three guys talking about life.
What is the current season of your friendship?
Smith: When I got word this Monday that my mentor of twenty-one years had died, these were the two people, alongside my wife, that I wanted to be with. But beyond this time of grief, as we get older, I think we realize how much we do need each other. We’re getting ready to move into probably the most critical phase that we’ve had together—confronting issues of death and change.
Roley: Recently, while Mike was out of town, we buried one of our deacons, a person who had made a big impact, a charter member of the church. Scotty and I were standing by this person’s grave, grieving. Scotty said, “You are going to dance on my grave.”
I didn’t say anything.
Scotty said, “No, Scott, look at me. You’re going to dance on my grave. You’re going to rejoice because you understand I’m with the Lord.”
How have you held each other accountable in the area of money?
Roley: Mike has a job with the potential to earn a ton of money. Yet Mike has a desire to care for the poor. I oversee our urban ministry, and one day we needed a van. I said, “Mike, here’s an opportunity for you to give,” and he gave. We’re also building a school for the poor. I called him and said, “Here’s an opportunity for you to give,” and he gave.
On the other hand, Scotty has helped me get my finances in control so that I can give.
Smith: Mike lives more responsibly than anybody 1 know who does what he does for a living. I have, though, confronted other Christian artists at that very point. I can’t say with Tony Campolo, “How can you love God and drive a BMW?” but some people don’t understand the principle Paul laid down in 1 Corinthians—”All things are permissible but not all things are profitable.” That is a principle of economics that needs to be more fully understood and celebrated.
Card: Christian psychologist Larry Crabb, who’s had an impact on all of us, told the young men he has discipled, “If you ever get in a place where there’s this or that temptation, remember my face.”
My thing is cars. I could go off the deep end and get into nice vehicles, because I’m often with people who have them. But whenever that temptation comes, I remember these two guys’ faces. I know Scotty has confronted artists who bought $80,000 vehicles. One thing community does is it gives us a face.
Smith: It would be convenient to circumvent a topic like money by a silent pact—we feel good about our group because we talk about sex, but we won’t talk about money. The strength of community is tested by what questions come to the surface.
Roley: If I keep saying, “Man, I’m broke,” they can say, “Why? Where are you spending your money?”
Is there any sense of competition among you?
Roley: I can’t remember a day that I didn’t want the best for these guys.
Card: The people I feel competition with are generally the people I don’t like. When I see an artist get a big award, and it makes me mad, it’s usually because I don’t like that person.
Roley: There have been moments when my poison comes out. Scotty and Mike just say, “Scott, why are you jealous? You have so much to offer. They can’t do what you do.”
The worse sins tend not to be stealing and adultery, but pride and unbelief, which is something Scotty preaches.
What has your group not done right?
Card: The only regret I have is that at times we’ve been too busy. I remember in particular there was a season, a month or two, when I didn’t talk with these guys.
Roley: Either you or Scotty were on the road.
Card: It’s usually my fault. I’m usually gone.
Roley: Over a period of a year, I recently distanced myself from these guys.
Card: You would say, “You guys always call me, but I never call you.”
Roley: It makes me weep to think about it. But I finally ended up in Scotty’s arms saying, “I need you.” I had resisted their love.
What made you distance yourself from Scotty and Michael?
Smith: I think I can answer that for Scott. Scott has battled with self-contempt a lot of his life. When he locks into his self-contempt, it’s easy for him to be here physically but not emotionally.
But Michael and I don’t think of him as “poor little Scott, the victim.” We say, “Self-contempt is a sin. Repent of it. The grace of Jesus is sufficient for your contempt, not just for some technicolor sin.”
It’s like the hymn: “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the One I love.” We do that with the Lord; we do that with each other.
Scott, how are Scotty and Michael prone to wander?
Roley: Mike’s a do-er. He’s able to go up on his mountain, build his house, and comfort himself. He can be a loner. He could be a monk. He is gifted in a lot of different things and can hide in them.
Scotty is also shy, but he remains in his intellect.
Card: Scotty can be very sufficient.
Roley: I’ve never met anyone who makes as quick a decision—and be right most of the time—as Scotty. The gift makes him a great pastor and a great teacher and a great counselor, but it can also rob him of the need for others.
Card: It has idol written all over it.
Roley: Scotty’s confessions normally are, “Man, I’m staying in my cerebral place.”
Card: Which is why Scott is so good for Scotty. Scott is the archbishop of passion.
Roley: We try to draw Scotty out so he can enjoy the world with nothing significant attached to it.
So you’re not watchdogs for each other.
Roley: I don’t think you can love well if you say, “I’m here to keep you from doing something.”
Card: But our friendship is a way for dealing with our sin when it does happen. And it’s going to happen.
Smith: We’re not watchdogs; we’re watchmen. And there’s a big difference.
LEADERSHIP Summer 1996 p. 22-32
