J. Lee Grady, editor of Charisma Magazine has posted some timely and essential thoughts on church discipline in a recent article: Fire In My Bonesclick on archives: 2-02-07- Cowardice, Compromise and the Sin of Eli. He closes with the following call for action:

The bottom line: Godly leaders draw lines and enforce moral standards–without becoming self-righteous and unkind. Ungodly leaders, on the other hand, may appear to be nice and compassionate, but they actually are unfaithful to God if they refuse to require their spiritual sons and daughters to follow Biblical standards of behavior.

We are in a moment of serious leadership crisis in the American church, and part of our problem is the sin of Eli. I am making an appeal: will the fathers and mothers of the church please do their job? We need your rebuke and your rod of correction.

Please go to those who are exploiting God’s people financially and make them stop. Please confront those who are robbing the church for personal gain. Please go to those who are abusing others, sexually or in any other way, remove them from leadership and get them healed.

Please don’t let the Hophnis and Phinehases of today have airtime on Christian TV. Please don’t showcase them in your conferences. Please stop looking the other way when you hear about their blunders. Please restore discipline to the body of Christ.

Response: I believe that Jesus is beginning to purify his church. Leaders with secret sins are about to be exposed. Those who openly abuse their positions are about to be rejected. Now is the time for leaders to get their life in order before the cameras and the lights are turned on. The Haggard affair is just the beginning. True Revival always seems to begin with true repentance and a cleansing of the Temple. New leaders will soon rise up and old leaders will be transformed or they will fall or fade away. I believe that those leaders who claim to seek Revival but delay in responding to the Spirit and continue to do their own thing will not be left standing when the fullness of a mighty rushing wind blows across the land.