Christian Accountability Questions: 40 for Groups and Partners

Christian accountability questions are a short set of agreed questions that a group or a pair ask one another regularly, so that each person can give an honest account of their life with God. The best ones are open, specific to what you have committed to, and asked with grace. This guide gives forty, grouped by area, along with the questions from the early Methodist bands and a selection from the list traditionally attributed to John Wesley.

Scripture assumes this kind of mutual care. “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:16). “Exhort one another every day” (Hebrews 3:13). “Bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2). Questions are simply a way of making room for it.

Where accountability questions come from

The Methodist class meeting

From 1742, early Methodists met weekly in classes of about twelve under a leader. The leader asked each member, in some form, how their soul prospered. “How is it with your soul?” remains the classic accountability question, and the guide to covenant discipleship tells more of that story.

The rules of the bands (1738)

Smaller bands of four or five went further. Their rules, drawn up in December 1738, set out questions to be asked at every meeting. In modern wording:

1. What known sins have you committed since our last meeting?
2. What temptations have you met with?
3. How were you delivered?
4. What have you thought, said or done, of which you doubt whether it be sin or not?
5. Have you nothing you desire to keep secret?

These are searching questions, asked by people who had chosen one another and promised confidentiality. They are a good reminder that such questions belong in a small, trusted circle.

The 22 questions attributed to Wesley’s Holy Club

A list of 22 questions is widely shared as the daily self-examination of the Holy Club, the group John and Charles Wesley belonged to at Oxford around 1729. The attribution is traditional. The list as it circulates today cannot be traced with confidence to Wesley’s own writings, and some of its wording reads as later editing. It is best treated as questions in the Wesleyan spirit rather than his exact words. A selection:

• Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I really am?
• Am I honest in all my acts and words, or do I exaggerate?
• Can I be trusted?
• Did the Bible live in me today?
• Am I enjoying prayer?
• Do I pray about the money I spend?
• Do I get to bed on time and get up on time?
• Is there anyone whom I fear, dislike, disown, criticise, hold a resentment toward or disregard? If so, what am I doing about it?
• Is Christ real to me?

40 accountability questions, by area

No group needs all of these. Read through, mark the few that touch the commitments you have made, and leave the rest. Each list moves from gentle to more searching.

The soul

1. How is it with your soul?
2. Where have you noticed God at work since we last met?
3. What are you most thankful for this week?
4. What has been weighing on you?
5. Where do you feel far from God at the moment, and what do you think is behind it?
6. Is there anything you are pretending about, to us or to yourself?
7. What do you need to hear from God this week?

Scripture and prayer

8. What have you read in scripture this week, and what stayed with you?
9. How has prayer been: dry, steady, alive, absent?
10. Did you keep the times of prayer you said you would? What got in the way?
11. Have you been to worship with your church?
12. Is there a passage you are avoiding, or one you keep returning to?
13. How has scripture changed something you did or said this week?
14. What would help your prayer this week?

Relationships

15. How are things at home?
16. Who have you been able to love well this week?
17. Is there someone you need to forgive, or ask forgiveness from?
18. Have you spoken about anyone in a way you would not want them to hear?
19. Are you holding resentment toward anyone?
20. Who is lonely or struggling near you, and have you noticed them?
21. Have you kept the confidences others have trusted you with?

Work and money

22. How is your work, paid or unpaid, and how is it affecting you?
23. Have you been honest in your work this week?
24. Is work taking more of you than it should?
25. Have you been generous this week, with money or time?
26. Is there a spending habit you would rather we did not ask about?
27. Are you worried about money, and have you prayed about it?
28. Did you treat the people you work with or for as Christ would?

Temptation

29. What temptations have you met with this week?
30. How were you delivered, or where did you give in?
31. Is there something you have done that you are unsure was right?
32. Have you looked at anything, online or elsewhere, you would not want to admit to here?
33. What situations make the struggle harder, and can you avoid them?
34. Is there anything you want to keep secret from this group?

Rest

35. Have you rested this week, really rested?
36. How have you been sleeping?
37. Have you kept a sabbath, or something like one?
38. How much time have you spent on your phone or screens, and has it helped you?
39. What has given you joy lately?
40. Is there something you need to stop doing, for a season?

The questions about rest and absence matter more than people expect. Much of what goes wrong in the other areas starts with exhaustion. That is why the rule of life Ordo groups keep has a part for absence, the things you deliberately set down.

How to use them without it becoming policing

Accountability questions can do great good, and they can also make a group feel like an inspection. A few habits keep them on the right side.

Choose few, and choose together

Pick three to five questions as a group and keep them for a season. Add one personal question for each member, written by that person, about the area they want to be held to. People answer honestly when they chose the question.

Prefer open questions

“Did you read your Bible every day?” invites a yes or a no and a small sense of guilt. “What stayed with you from your reading?” invites a conversation. Save the yes or no questions for the specific commitments someone has asked to be held to.

Answer first

Whoever leads should answer the questions themselves, plainly, including what they did not manage. The first honest failure that is met with kindness sets the tone for everything after.

Respond with grace

Paul tells the Galatians to restore someone “in a spirit of gentleness” (Galatians 6:1). Listen before advising, and pray before moving on. If someone keeps falling short of a commitment, the kind question is usually whether it should be smaller.

Know the limits

A group of friends is not a substitute for pastoral care, counselling or recovery support. If someone shares something that points to harm, addiction or a crisis, help them find the right help. The guide on running an accountability group covers confidentiality and the ways groups go wrong, and the guide to finding an accountability partner covers working in pairs.

A simple weekly pattern

For a group meeting of an hour, something like this works well:

1. Open with a short prayer or a psalm.
2. Each person answers “How is it with your soul?” in a few sentences.
3. Go round with your chosen three to five questions, one person at a time.
4. Ask each person what would help this week.
5. Pray for each person by name.

Some groups end the day with a short examen between meetings, which makes the weekly questions easier to answer because the noticing has already been done.

How Ordo helps

Ordo is an iPhone app for small, invitation-only groups keeping a rule of life together. The rule is written in six parts (scripture, prayer, reflection, absence, accountability areas and review), and each member names their own accountability areas, so the questions you are held to are ones you chose.

Each day asks for a written reflection, a response to the day’s scripture and a short check-in, about ten minutes in all. Reflections are held until everyone has written and then revealed together, so no one can read ahead and shape their answer to match. There are no streaks, badges or guilt notifications. Ordo is in beta on iPhone; join the waitlist to start a group.