Pretty much everyone agrees we ought to be honest. Assuming honesty is a given in your learning partnership, the next question is, how open do you want to be?

Openness is measured by degrees of appropriate, present-tense, self-disclosure. Most Christians can be fairly honest without being very open. Conversations about temptation and failure tend to remain safely in the past-tense. The trouble with that is we give the impression that our significant temptations and failures are behind us, which is a signal that anyone who’s struggling today will do well to keep that to himself. This is a lonely place.

Progressive openness creates a sanctuary for people whose need for God’s mercy is not past. Talk about this with your learning partners.

Agree with your partners about the level of self-disclosure and confidentiality you want to pursue. In general, if you want to encourage a high degree of self-disclosure, agree to a high standard of confidentiality.

• That means you agree to pray for each other and support each other and hold each other’s feet to the fire while respecting each other’s privacy.
• It means behaving in such a way that nobody ever walks up to your partner and says, “I’m praying for you; Tony says you’re going through a tough time in your marriage.”
• It means you stick with your partner when he admits he’s in trouble, and help him find assistance if he’s over his head (and you never tell a soul what you did).
• If you’ve been burned in the past, acknowledge that. If this is a new idea to you, say so. Put it to each other in the form of a question: “Is this the kind of openness you want?” And give an honest answer.

Openness is expressed in the first-person.

Practice using “I” language when you talk with your learning partners. I think, I hope, I wish, I will, I won’t, I can, I can’t… All these are ways of acknowledging and owning personal perceptions, opinions, actions, intentions and consequences.

The person who says, “I can’t follow Jesus and still insist on having things my own way,” is making a personal declaration, putting herself on the line to behave differently than she might otherwise.

It’s easy to get sloppy about this. Substituting “you” when we sort-of-more-or-less mean “I” is a way of deflecting responsibility. People transpose personal declarations like the one in the previous paragraph into generalizations like, “You can’t follow Jesus and still insist on having things your own way.” That’s sermonizing and sermons seldom contribute to openness (even when it’s “understood” that you means I). Openness demands better than that. But be patient with each other. Speaking honest, open, “I” language is a learned skill that, for many of us, includes unlearning some sloppy habits.