Consecration call – one year on

At ELS last year, Mark Pugh invited Elim to spend a year gathering together in consecration. How have people responded, and how has God moved since then? Chris Rolfe reports.

Mark Pugh wasn’t planning to start his tenure as Elim’s general superintendent with a call for consecration.

“More likely, I would have begun with church planting, building up ministers and casting vision for that first year,” he says.

But as soon as he was nominated for the role, he knew that God was calling Elim to its first season of consecration in 40 years.

“If I’d followed my own plans I would have been going against what the Spirit was inviting us to do,” he says.

And so, at ELS 2024 Mark unveiled a different plan for the next 12 months: a year in three parts involving personal consecration over the summer, consecrating churches throughout the autumn, then consecration for the movement as a whole in early 2025.

Why consecration?

At the summit, prophet Rachel Hickson explained that consecrating individuals, churches and Elim in this way would be “an intentional process where I choose to separate myself, my possessions, my resources and steward them for the purposes of God.” Various speakers then explored why this matters.

It’s needed, Mark explained, because the pressures and realities of daily life often cause us to drift from God and his purposes.

… story continues