Bible Leadership Podcast [BLP]

EP 73: The Final 10% | Fierce Accountability Pt 1

• Mark Carter & Erica Adkins • Season 2 • Episode 73

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0:00 | 23:19

Real accountability isn’t about feeling better—it’s about becoming more obedient through honest, loving, and consistent relationships.

In this episode, Mark breaks down why most accountability fails and what it actually takes to experience real spiritual growth. Drawing from Scripture, personal stories, and years of leadership experience, he contrasts “weak sauce” accountability with the kind that sharpens, confronts, and restores. This is a practical, no-fluff walkthrough of what fierce accountability looks like—and how to find (or become) that kind of partner.

📋 Key Takeaways

  • Accountability is an accounting—a truthful look at your heart, attitudes, and behaviors, not vague spiritual updates.
  • Growth happens when someone helps you confess the final 10%, not just the safe 90%.
  • Real accountability requires clear expectations, consistency, and courage—not just friendship.
  • Scripture frames accountability as protection, power, and restoration (Ecclesiastes 4).
  • The goal isn’t relief without repentance—it’s forgiveness through honest obedience.

“Nice accountability makes you feel better. Fierce accountability makes you better.”

📖 Scripture Tie-Ins

  • Ecclesiastes 4:9–12 — Two are better than one; protection, strength, and restoration
  • Matthew 28:19–20 — Teaching obedience as part of discipleship
  • 1 Peter 3:7 — Spiritual consequences of relational disobedience
  • James 5:16 — Confession, prayer, and healing

🛠️ Next Steps for Listeners

  • Pray: “God, who would You choose to walk with me in real accountability?”
  • Reflect: What’s the final 10% you’ve been avoiding sharing?
  • Action: Download and review the Accountability Expectations Sheet mentioned in the episode.
  • Journal Prompt:
     Where have I confused encouragement with avoidance?
  • Practice: Start with one consistent weekly check-in—don’t overcomplicate it.

Mentioned:  Fierce Accountability Agreement

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The Final 10 Percent

SPEAKER_00

There's a little voice in your head that said, yeah, but you didn't tell them this. That thing that you didn't tell them is the very thing that we call final 10% accountability. There comes a time, if you keep walking with somebody, they're gonna try to justify their attitude or their sinful disposition or why that was okay for them to do that at that certain moment. To say, God, I need you to send into my life people that are gonna help, you know, have my same kind of chemistry, have my same kind of desire, even if we we don't agree about everything, but they have the same kind of desire to get rid of sin in our lives. What's happening everybody? Welcome back to the Bible Leadership Podcast. It's Carter. Today I want to talk to you about weak sauce accountability. And to talk about weak sauce accountability, I need to remind us what the purpose of the Bible leadership podcast is or really who it's for. So I like to think about it this way: the Bible Leadership Podcast is for me when I was a young adult getting into ministry. There was all kinds of lessons that I got from like leadership books, and I love that leadership books exist, you know, these days, and the church can learn a lot from that. Those are good, but often I'd get leadership principles, and even in Christian books, there'd be like a sprinkling of, and here's a little Jesus on top of it. And that's great. Like I can still use that stuff, but I would see in my time with God, there were other things that God was actually teaching his leaders, people like Moses, people like David. And I was like, those are like the real leadership things, though, that I want to talk about. And so over the years, I feel like the Lord has taught me from those lessons as well as the other books. So that's what I want to share with you. And when I started, I could have used a better understanding of accountability. So you remember this. Um, you know, Jesus' charge to disciples is going to all the nations, baptizing people in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you, that teaching you to obey everything I've commanded. That's part of what accountability is about. We're becoming disciples that are just more obedient. If you look at the span of your life, like let's say five years, with an accountability partner, your obedience can go significantly up, even if it takes a long time over that five years, or it can kind of waffle back and forth. Accountability is it's really an accounting. So it's like it's like taking an accounting sheet and saying, here's all the real things. Like it's it's what God sees as here's how you're really doing in your heart, how you're doing in your attitude, how you're doing in your behaviors. And when your accountability partner isn't weak sauce, they're actually going to sharpen you. I want to tell you about this story that got me into this mind frame. Uh I was at a cohort of sorts, I was at a leadership development little class with a bunch of leadery people. And we were getting to know each other and we're going around the room, and everybody's like sharing, hey, share who you are, and then share one thing that you're really struggling with. Hey guys, other than two people, I was one of the two, everyone shared something so milky, like, I need to be more caring. And I and another guy that I didn't even really know that well, like we went after it. We're like, oh dude, here's like my lust issues, here's like my bitterness issues. And I was, I don't want to say I was I was a little bit TO'd, man. I looked at these leaders, I'm like, you guys are the leaders and you can't even like say your sin. I like even voiced that. And this other gentleman came up to me at the end of that time and said, I want a real accountability partner that's gonna talk like you do. And so we got together and we said, let's let's let's do something that we don't normally see. Oftentimes, accountability like partner relationships have to do with, you know, you're you're kind of nice and you check in with other people. These are these ones I had seen up to this point. When you would even confess in it, all there'd be like a little back rub and be like, oh, that's okay. You know, Jesus loves you. And it's like, bro, I know Jesus loves me. That's that's not the issue for me. I'm not progressing the way that I want it. And so ultimately they they just became ineffective. So he and I, we did not even really know each other. We said, What do you say? We start meeting every week just on the phone. We can't really want time to get together, but we'll confess the final 10%. We'll confess this is what I'm really going through. This is like the real hard stuff that I am sinning about and I'm just like totally in rebellion. Or when I get into rebellion, this is the kind of thing that I'm gonna be doing. We synchronized on expectations and we just said, I'm committing to you. You're my partner for the foreseeable future. We're gonna hold each other to fierce accountability. And so that's what we did. So, in all my previous experiences, and he shared these experiences, what went wrong with accountability partner relationships was often they'd get rescheduled if it wasn't convenient. Um, even if if it didn't get rescheduled, there was there wasn't really a lot of like follow-up. Hey, this is what I'm struggling with. Instead of like, oh, tell me the heart behind that, or tell me like what are the circumstances you get in. Like, there wasn't, it was just like, oh, okay. Instead of probing into the heart, uh, that's what I had experienced in the past. There wasn't a sense of this is real or this is a you know a consequential thing. And because of that, there wasn't a lot of progress. There wasn't any um necessarily warnings. There wasn't any like, you know, dude, you've said that for four weeks in a row now, and I feel like you're playing fast and loose with that thing. But really, this seems like it's a bigger deal than you think it might be. So, because of that, as we went on in our accountability relationship, we just kind of adapted, adopted this biblical framework that I want to walk you through right now. Okay, so the place that we're getting this from the Bible, it's the Bible leadership podcast, uh, is one of my favorite scriptures in the entire Bible. It says this, Ecclesiastes 4, we'll start with verse 9. Two are better than one because they have good wages for their labor. If either of them falls or sins, this is what's happening for accountability partners, if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls, and there's not a second one to lift him up. I've already got thoughts I want to share, but I'm gonna get through the scripture. Furthermore, if two lie down together, they keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? And if one can overpower him who's alone, two can stand against him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart. This fall, but there's no one to help you up. I can't tell you how many times I'm talking to a friend who's maybe coming to see me as a pastor, and not only are they have they fallen into sin, but there is nobody who knows. There's no one who like might have held them back sooner. And I don't mean like a little sin, I mean like their life is beginning to self-destruct. And often one of the tensions for me is like, wow, where were the buddies? Where were the friends that would have gotten in his face about this? One who can lift up his companion, it's just that, it's just that moment of confession. Here's a thing that cleans the slate. This person is a high priest to me of sorts. Uh, this person reminds me I'm forgiven. And I don't know how to explain it. Some of you know about how this how this goes. Soon as you confess it and they say, You are forgiven in Jesus' name, there's a washing, there's a cleansing. Even when I know like I'm forgiven, someone else telling me I'm forgiven, representing Jesus, is super huge. Verse 11 said if they lay down together, they can keep warm. I know we like to sexualize this thing, it's it preaches great at a wedding. Uh, but really that's just about we've got a resource, a limited resource, that when we put them together, we have more heat, we have more power. Uh, and if one can overpower him who is alone, the enemy's always trying to overpower us. But somebody who is asking us the tough questions, and then we're also praying for, dude, that's just a whole lot more power to become a whole lot more obedient, which is a whole lot more blessed, over the years. A way to think about it, so this is the visual that I have. Think about it like you've got a leech on your back. You don't always know it though. And so your buddy, your friend, your accountability partner comes along and they say, Whoa, dude, there's something on your back. I'm gonna cut that thing off. That's what that's the sin that is beginning to devour to drink your blood. Or it might even be that you bring up to them, I feel like something's sticky on my back, which is I feel like I'm getting into sin over here. They say, Yes, yes, that is sin. God's word says this. And then you repent and apologize, and you just get clean and you stop being having this parasitic relationship with sin, sucking out your power. So, one of the things this talk is for, it's a resource for folks who are in our current leader lab little cohort of people that are developing their leadership here at Fierce Church. I want to walk them through and walk you through. Here's what you do in order to acquire a different kind of accountability department. Now, partner, now they are required to do it. It's part of being in the cohort. You have to do this. But even if you're not a part of anything like that, these tips I think will help you find someone who is this kind of a person. And I would clarify, they have to be in a certain mindset or they have to be told to do it in a cohort. Um, they have to be almost a little bit like sick of not progressing and not having genuine, helpful accountability. And the wisest place to start with that is to start with God. To say, God, I need you to send into my life people that are gonna help, you know, have my same kind of chemistry, have my same kind of desire, even if we we don't agree about everything, but they have a same kind of desire to get rid of sin in our lives. So we want to ask God, God, would you send me somebody with backbone? This is this is gonna be confusing a little bit. You need to have chemistry, but you don't need to be friends on the front end. So when I first met my fierce accountability partner, we didn't even really know each other. We just both had a common purpose. I need somebody to really hold me accountable. And so that was the agreement. We became friends over time, but we really didn't start friends. And that's where I would encourage you to start. You don't have to be super besties. You really just have to know about each other and then agree, this is what we're doing. We've got a resource that we'll put in the show notes somewhere. It's really just an expectation sheet. It is like, here's what I'm asking for out of an accountability partner. So you can just have that. You can give that to somebody. Do you want to do this? Because if you don't want to do this, I love you, but this isn't what I'm wanting to do. Um, so first ask God. Then you set those expectations. You maybe bring that sheet with you and say, hey man, just to clarify, this is what I want to do. Because if you have different expectations, you're just asking for trouble. Like that's gonna get screwed up at some point because someone's gonna be weak sauce and the other one's gonna be ferocious and it's gonna be very discouraging. So you wanna say stuff out loud, like, hey, this isn't gonna be casual. This isn't gonna be off limits, we're not gonna miss a time, or even if we do, that's gonna be super rare, and then we're gonna make up for it. Uh, I'm not gonna get offended when you tell me the truth and you have permission to tell me anything, and even if I'm defensive, like that doesn't mean I don't want to hear it. That means like still bring it on. And so um, those are the kinds of things you want to ask when you're approaching a potential accountability partner. Remembering nothing is off limits. That means that there's gonna be times where you might be communicating with them where there's a little voice in your head that said, Yeah, but you didn't tell them this. That thing that you didn't tell them is the very thing that we call final 10% accountability. That means I'm not just gonna tell you 90%, I'm gonna tell you the final 10%. This is something I know the Spirit of God doesn't like, but I didn't tell you about it. And so I need to tell you. So the categories that um the current accountability partner that I have and ones in in previous times are things like sexual integrity. And that includes just thought life. Everything from that, but also to finances. So my once one of my accountability partners literally sent me their budget and said, I just need someone to look at this and know what I'm spending my money on. I was so proud of that dude. Like that was that was a new level for us when he when he did that. Marriage and relationships, asking questions like, tell me about how you're doing serving your spouse. Tell me about how you're doing with the way you speak to them. And then if it's not great, there's there's a push of like, wow, like what do you think Jesus thinks about that? What do you think about, you know, 1 Peter 3, sir, when the Lord says, if you speak harshly to your wife, I'm not going to answer your prayers. Now that's all done in affection, it's love, it's not mean, but it's that's what an accountability partner does. They bring you back to God's word and ask that kind of question. Um, asking about your parenting, asking you about the pride or bitterness or insecurity that is in you, asking just about how is your time with God going? Okay, well, how do you wish it was going? Um in one of my seasons past, I would call my opponent accountability partner every day at 6 a.m. just to be like, hey, you asked me to you know hold you accountable about this for a while. And so it was it was inconvenient, but and it was inconvenient for him to get the call, but it got him up and it got him doing the thing that he was supposed to do. So want to make sure that there's nothing off limits. Let me give you like a first go at this. Here, here's what it could look like if you were to just start this today. Um, you don't want to overcomplicate it, you want to keep it pretty simple on the front end. You want to be fierce but simple. There's not too many complexities here. Uh, here would be a rhythm that you could do. One is you just do once a week. So, my current accountability partner and I, we see each other with with relative frequency, so we have an audio check-in every Wednesday. It's like, hey, here's what's going on, here's what's going on with my family, and then we can push back. Well, you mentioned this, but what about this? Um, in previous seasons, I did a phone call every Wednesday at 5 p.m. on the on the drive home. I had an hour drive, so hey, we're just gonna talk. It doesn't really matter which ones of those it is, it's just that it's consistent. You have to be able to keep pulling it off. You can use the phone, you can use FaceTime. The big idea is it's gotta be the same time, otherwise, they're gonna start to doubt you or you're gonna start to doubt them. You're like, I don't know if they're really taking this seriously. Doesn't seem like this is a priority. If it's not a priority, then there's something wrong with it. Even when you do something that's a little more virtual, I suggest you have some kind of physical time together, at least quarterly. So, one of mine, we used to go out. Um, and when I say one of mine, I mean I've had different ones in different seasons. Um, I don't have multiple ones at the same time. I think, and there's a danger even with that. The danger with that is you'll be tempted to withhold some of what you should share from one of them with the self-justification, I'll tell it to the other one. Uh so I recommend just have one at a time. Yeah, we would we would get together every every quarter just to be together and be like, okay, let me look let me look you in the eye, let me look you in the face, and even you know, ask you tougher questions maybe as we're together. Big idea, it can't be optional. Now, there's a lot more questions than this that you could ask, but here's four starter questions that I would give you. One is, where were you tempted this week? Where are you another way to say that is where you noticing the enemy? Where is where's your guard down? Another one might be, where did you give ground even a little? So I know for dudes, often this has to do with thought life. Like, where did you, you know, you were tempted to have a thought and then you kept going with it. Uh, another question, what are you afraid to tell me right now? Like that's a great one. Because often it's just our our nature. We will be withholding some information because it's it's the scariest part to share. Now, what are you afraid to tell me right now? Um, how can I pray for you? Here's the fourth one. How can I pray for you specifically? These are the kinds of trigger questions, and you might develop some over time. Um, I'm sure you could ask other friends, you know, what do they use? I'm sure you can go online, I'm sure you can ask AI, what are great accountability questions? The the big thing you need to do with these is you can't stand for vague answers. So when you get an answer like, hey, how's that going? And it's like, oh, you know, it's a little better. Well, what the heck does that mean? It's a little better. No, dude, I need to know how it's going. Like, did you suck this week? Like, how many times did you do it? What what was it exactly? Otherwise, we're not keeping a real accounting. I'm looking for a ledger sheet. Where were the slips? What happened there? Um, you can't say good. And then excuses are so I've been through this with accountability partners myself doing it as well. There comes a time, if you keep walking with somebody, they're gonna try to justify their attitude or their sinful disposition or why that was okay for them to do that at that certain moment. And there's gotta be a loving, like, you're a psychopath if you think I'm just gonna let you walk past that. I do not agree that God thinks that is okay. Now it's gotta be really not okay in God's word. It can't just be your preference or your, you know, denominational nuance. It's gotta be something that, no, clearly God is not down with this. That's when you challenge the other one. Hey, brother, I love you. I'll I'll I'll take a bullet for you. But that is horse crap, what you just said. God is super not down with that. You need to take a look at that. Why don't you pray about that for a week and let's talk again next time? Here's another helpful thing that comes from accountability, and that is the SOS. This is when temptation comes and you're right in the middle of temptation, getting that out of just your own spirit to fight and saying, hey, bro, sister, I'm in the battle right now. Would you stop whatever you're doing and pray for me? First, just you doing that interrupts the temptation, and then them interrupting the enemy and fighting temptation on your behalf, that is just super huge. As long as you don't give them a sermon. When someone's asking you for an SOS, they say, hey man, would you pray for me? It's probably not time to be like, hey, well, let's talk about this for 45 minutes. They're probably in an urgent situation. They just need you to pray now. Encourage, stir them up about it later, but just pray right now. Now, let me give you a few more tips on how to recognize and be a fierce accountability partner, not someone who's weak sauce. First, you want to think about the ratio of encouragement to challenge. I would suggest 70% encouragement, meaning it's got to be a positive experience to get with you. It's got to be like, I believe this person's actually for me. They're gonna call out what's good, they're gonna remind me, hey, here's what you do that's awesome. Some of my most impactful uh accountability times was when my partner would say to me, Hey, look, you are a man of God. This thing is not gonna beat you. I've seen you do this, this, this, this, and this, and this, right, with your family, with your church. You need that kind of a person who's just gonna like have your back and tell you the good truth even more than the bad truth. There might be 30% confrontation. So that's just like, oh, well, tell me more about that. And confrontation doesn't mean shut up, you liar. It just means like, what was that? Let's poke at that. That's a thing. Or even like, that's sin, dude. You need to repent from that. Out of that 70 and 30, also I would say it's gotta be 100% honest. If you start withholding stuff, you're gonna know, okay, this isn't really what it's supposed to be. Like I, this was supposed to be a like final 10% relationship. If you're not doing that, then you're gonna, your conscience is gonna know this is not worth it. It's not worth the time because it's not actually doing what it's supposed to do. Here's a way to think about it. And and it's even helpful to say this sometimes. You know this, you're not the Holy Spirit. And even reminding them, hey, I'm not the Holy Spirit. Here's just what's curious to me, or here can I suggest that you look at the scripture this way? You're not trying to be the Lord of their faith. You're just saying you're your tool of the Holy Ghost to just say, I think maybe you're floating past this thing and you shouldn't necessarily do that. Some ways that you can lean into those confrontation moments are things like, hey, can I give you a thought? I think even when you're gonna do it, instead of, oh, look, you just did this this week, you're really more looking for patterns. Hey, bro, sister, I don't know if you know this, but you've mentioned this to me six times now. Do you think there's something more going on there? Do you think there's maybe a greater work in your heart that the Lord wants to do? We do want to provide that release and that relief of like you're forgiven in Jesus. I'd said that every time. Like every time somebody confesses something, you are forgiven in Jesus' name, God loves you, I'm for you, you're you're a man of God, you're a woman of God. That said, we don't just want to give that if there's not actual repentance. So we're we're trying to nudge toward repentance, not just relief. I want you to feel forgiven, but not until you've actually come face to face with this thing. One of my early accountability partners, they were really wrestling with bitterness, and I could just hear it in the way that they would talk about their father. It would just come up again and again. He's gonna go see him. And he would just say things. It was never like I'm having a real sin issue with my dad, but you could just hear it. And so after a while, it was like, tell me about this thing. I think you're not looking at this thing, dude. I think that you've got some real unforgiveness, and you need to own that that's an issue for you and God. God wants to talk about that more. Now, here's the escape clause, okay? And it's important we found there should be an escape clause. There's gotta be a see when you get with somebody as your accountability partner, there's a chance it's not gonna work. It might even be that you really like each other, that you're really great friends, but the accountability chemistry just doesn't work really well. And so there's gotta be on the front end to say, hey, if if this isn't working, we're just like permission to, we just have permission to say, I love you. This has nothing to do with my love for you. I just think our chemistry isn't right. I'm gonna look for a different person in this season right now. I'll still pray for you, I'll still have your back, yada, yada, yada. But you've got to have that out so that one or both of you can actually be honest and be like, you know, dude, this just really is not working for me. If you build that in, that's way easier later on when a certain percentage of the time you might have to do that. So someone can completely love you and not want to be your accountability partner. And that's right, because you want to get along to the person who God really would choose for you that has the right kind of a chemistry. So here is my challenge to you. First, I want to challenge you if you haven't got this uh kind of walkthrough expectation. Here's what I'm asking of an accountability partner sheet that we've provided as a resource. Second, I would encourage you to ask God. If you don't have an accountability partner, God, who would you choose for me? And that doesn't mean you have to you He has to answer by tomorrow night. It's just God, would you lay someone on my heart to ask to so I can have this conversation with them? If you're already in accountability, I would still encourage you and your partner to walk through that sheet and just say, hey, is there anything about this that we should adapt? Or maybe there's a great review time for us to talk about if this is a good idea. You want to set expectations. Clearly. And I would aim at something manageable, not overly complex. So if you can just get your once-a-week call or once-a-week face-to-face or whatever that is, just get that and be like, let's get more aggressive as we go in terms of what I'm comfortable telling you. Um, I'm gonna tell you the whole stuff, but I just want to make sure that we're feeling comfortable with one another and this is the way that we want to do it, instead of having to overcomplicate it. Okay, well, we're gonna we're gonna go on vacation together and we're gonna do all these different events together. Just start with the simple, we're gonna be accountability partners. Here's my crap. That's really how we start. All right, folks. So thank you so much again for tuning in. I hope this is really helpful and exciting. Hopefully, it can be a resource to you for years to come. Next week, Erica's gonna come back and she and I are gonna talk through this and maybe pull out some more of the meat. Until then, great to be with you. Go get them. Stay fierce. All right, everybody, thank you so much for tuning in today. Hey, if this was helpful, would you consider liking and sharing, putting it places where other people who need this kind of content are going to find it? Also, you may know that we have a lot of other places you can find our stuff TikTok, Instagram, all the things. So go ahead and check those out in places where you're going to be anyway. And don't forget to lead strong today.