Last Sunday the headline on the front page of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution made the city groan: “SEX CHARGES CAST PALL ON BISHOP PAULK.” The lengthy story about charismatic pastor Earl Paulk Jr. and his Cathedral of the Holy Spirit read like a steamy sex novel, only in this case the main character is a minister who allegedly lured women into adulterous affairs—and in some cases asked a woman to have sex with another visiting preacher.

Many people were quoted in the report, including Mona Brewer and Cindy Hall, two women who said they were involved sexually with Paulk for years, sometimes meeting him in parking lots and then driving to his home for sex. Missing from the story were any quotes from Paulk himself, who is 78 and currently recovering from major surgery.

I’m still waiting for a statement of apology from the bishop. I’ve been waiting 13 years, ever since the first round of allegations surfaced from a group of women who said they were his victims. More allegations were made public in 2001, when another female church member filed a lawsuit claiming that Paulk molested her when she was a child and later when she was a teenager.

There was no public statement from Paulk after that incident, either. The lawsuit was settled out of court. Meanwhile Paulk chastised the media—including Charisma—and said his critics were demonic agents bent on destroying him.

Paulk needs to apologize to us, to his local church, to the denomination he left in 1960 and to the larger body of Christ. And most of all to his victims, one of whom said she felt suicidal after Paulk allegedly told her that sexual intimacy with him would “resurrect” his ministry.

For years the rumors have circulated about immorality at Paulk’s mammoth church—which in its heyday had 12,000 members. Today anyone who knew of the sexual scandals, including many Paulk family members, has been summoned to a suburban Atlanta courtroom for lengthy depositions. The ugly story is unraveling.

Yet we still have no public apology from Paulk. I hope and pray that before Paulk meets his Maker he will make things right.

Meanwhile, I am begging church leaders to take a long, hard look at this situation and create new policies. We need assurance that what has been happening in Atlanta for so many years is not repeated.

I talked this week with David Huskins, 39, who was elected to head the International Communion of Charismatic Churches (ICCC), the network that Paulk founded in 1982. Huskins has endured plenty of shell shock since November, when he faced the seriousness of the charges against Paulk and then asked him to resign.

Today, as Huskins takes the helm of the ICCC and leads a movement with churches in 29 countries, he is adamant about avoiding the mistakes made in the Paulk scandal. We must, he says, do three things immediately:

1. Develop a mechanism to evaluate charges against church leaders. Typically, Huskins says, “credibility is always given to the leader, while the accuser is always vilified.” Huskins believes that independent charismatic churches, in particular, have shied away from any form of church court “because we were afraid of becoming legalistic or denominational.” We must develop a system of accountability that neither demonizes the accuser nor makes the leader out to be the target of a witch-hunt.

2. Rethink the issue of submission to authority. In many churches today, Huskins says, the leader of a church is given pre-eminence at the expense of Christ’s own authority—and this becomes unhealthy religious control. “The pulpit must serve the pew. But in some churches the pew is expected to serve the pulpit,” he says. “What we need is a return to servant leadership.”

3. Demand accountability. In the past, church leaders demanded that their parishioners be faithful in tithing, church attendance and moral integrity. But in today’s atmosphere of scandal and distrust, we shouldn’t be surprised when the tables are turned. Church members must be able to ask their leaders: “Who are you accountable to?”

If any of these steps had been implemented in Atlanta, fewer people would have been hurt—and one of the nation’s most prominent charismatic ministries might have been salvaged.

Let’s do it right next time.