A recent conversation with a friend brought back a childhood church memory that I had all but forgotten – the Sunday school attendance card.  Each Sunday, we recorded how “faithful” we had been during the week in such matters as daily Bible reading, lesson study, giving an offering, and church worship attendance. Individuals and classes received grades related to the accomplishment of those activities.

My guess is the demise is due to at least two somewhat opposite conditions.  On the one hand, such a practice could lead to a legalistic and empty pride.  One might simply go through the motions of “accomplishing” all the activities indicated on the card and feel good about themselves for merely doing them, all the while receiving no real lasting spiritual benefit from them at all. On the other hand the practice may have disappeared due to our great aversion to accountability.  We didn’t want to read our Bible daily, bring an offering, stay for church, or study our Sunday school lesson, and we didn’t want anyone else to KNOW we didn’t do it, so we removed the evidence.

While those activities may have become someone’s legalistic benchmark, they were at least initially deemed to be disciplines of spiritual value.  Studying one’s lesson, reading one’s Bible, contributing financially, and attending church are all ways that God uses to help us become more Christlike.  I am not advocating a return to the Sunday school attendance card, but I do think we need to discipline ourselves to godliness (1 Timothy 4:7).  When we removed the accountability, we stopped developing disciples.  When we stopped developing disciples, we fell sorely behind in impacting our world for Jesus.

I strongly encourage you to find an accountability partner or group who will spur you on toward love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:24-25) and challenge you to INTENTIONALLY engage those activities that will help you grow to be more like Jesus.