The discipling meeting is the ICOC's characteristic practice and it is what a member's week is built around. It was typically weekly and formal, with informal contact daily; the disciple gave an account of prayer and Bible reading, of who they had invited to a Bible talk, of their giving, and of sin — including sexual and financial matters — and the discipler gave direction. Because the partner was assigned by the structure rather than chosen, and because the same person often decided questions about dating, employment and where a member lived, the relationship carried real institutional power. The movement's defence was and is that ordinary churches leave members unaccountable and that the New Testament assumes close mutual oversight. Its own 2003 apology conceded that the practice had been operated authoritatively rather than mutually.