At one point in my life, I found myself standing before a crowd, speaking on behalf of a faith I no longer fully understood. As I talked about the teachings I once held dear, I was grappling with emotions of loneliness, jealousy, envy, fear of missing out, anger and lust. These feelings consumed me and turned me away from the incredible, loving and sacrificial God who had been my anchor. In that dark season, I chose to pick a girl over God - she was a wonderful person, but she wasn’t God. I believed I had been betrayed by the church.

In December 2024, I published an academic paper entitled, “Too Gay for the Evangelicals. Too Evangelical for the Gays: A Narrative and Autoethnograpic Study of a Celibate-Gay Testimony”. In the paper, I was seeking to explore the place of testimonies by same-sex attracted Christians within the church. 

For a number of years, I attended an accountability group for Christian men with sexual addictions, and found it very helpful. It was a mixed group - old and young, black and white, manual labourers and city professionals, businessmen and civil servants. The men came with a broad range of issues, whether battling lustful thoughts or porn addiction, compulsively masturbating, using female sex workers or being promiscuous with other men. They were all with a very obvious broken sexuality and all trusting Jesus for their salvation.

If you are planning to set up an accountability arrangement with another person, the principles in this short article are intended to help you set it up so that it is clear, effective and helpful from the start. The two roles referred to in this article are “supporter” (the person offering support) and “recipient” (the person being supported). The focus of this article is establishing an accountability arrangement that is focused on interpersonal interaction, instead of one focused on an online monitoring product (such as Covenant Eyes).

When I was first asked to write a book review on the book Quenched by Jessica Harris, I’ll admit, I was sceptical. I don’t struggle with pornography and wasn’t sure I could relate to this book and the particular struggles spoken about…Well how wrong and ignorant was I! It is important to state that this book is not a self-help guide or practical manual to gain freedom from pornography or sexual shame, but rather an encouraging and emotional read to help us walk alongside each other in the hope that we can “live a life quenched” and glorify God. 

Many of us know the value of having an accountability partner or partners, and find great help and strength in sharing with another human, but what about accountability before God? Should we have an accountable relationship with Him, and if so, what should it look like?

When I was asked to give this testimony, and told that the theme was about accountability, I was instantly a bit nervous. As I was trying to work out what to say for this, I kept finding myself trying to avoid one particular aspect of my story. But I really felt God put it on my heart to write about. So, just to rip the bandage off right away, this testimony is about my struggle with pornography. I have been in recovery from a porn addiction for the last 4 years or so.

Accepting the need for accountability is a humbling step. None of us likes to think that we lack self-control. And we’d rather not have to talk about our private struggles with other people. When we read about the  misdemeanours of certain politicians, and even some church leaders, we long for them to be held to account.

True Freedom Trust is right to prioritise fellowship and community as ways for members to ensure that their faith walk keeps to the straight and narrow. There is no surprise here, since finding and keeping community are fundamentally scriptural (1 Cor. 1: 10; Heb. 10: 25; 1 John 1: 7, and many others). As we have seen in some of the other articles in this edition of Ascend, a key function of fellowship and community is accountability. As Christians, we need each other’s help identifying the course corrections urged by the Holy Spirit.