A year set apart: how Elim responded to the call to consecration

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.

“We see this cycle regularly in the Old Testament and elsewhere in Scripture. It’s there throughout history and in my own personal walk with Jesus too.

“In ministry, it’s so easy to become focused on doing the work, to the point where it takes a priority place that’s supposed to be reserved for the Lord.”

Malcolm Duncan spoke about the need to be set apart for God, looking at the story in Luke 19:31 of the disciples untying a colt for Jesus.

“Its owners asked why they were untying it and they said, ‘the Lord needs it’,” he explained.

“Just as the colt was untied in order for Jesus to use it, we are being called to be set apart for the Master. We need to be untied from those things that can so often hinder us in our service of him – sin, shame, fear, competitiveness, jostling, sloth, wrong words spoken over us, wrong understandings of ourselves and misguided assumptions.”

Doing this, he added, allows us to “become special utensils, dedicated and useful for the honour of the Lord, ready and fit for every good work,” (Timothy 2:21).

Mark then spoke of the need for a God-focused – rather than us-focused – mindset. He explored Joshua 5, where Joshua demands of the Commander of God’s army, “Are you friend or foe?” only to be told, “Take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy.”

“I’m sure you’ve prayed prayers like this: ‘Lord bless what we’re doing, be on our side. If God is for us who can be against us,’” he said.

“But there’s a problem. God is not ‘on our side’. He’s asking if we are on his! The challenge to us here is, are we going to line up with the Commander of Heaven’s armies or are we going to keep going to him every now and again when we want a bit of protection or provision?”

Consecration matters, speakers then explained, because God wants churches full of the Spirit’s power, set apart and dedicated to him, ready to do great things for his kingdom in a new season for Elim.

A Year of Consecration

So how has the past year played out?

“With personal consecration we’ve been holding lots of Zoom prayer calls, where many of our ministers have gathered just to spend time praying together,” says Mark. “I’ve been travelling the Regions calling consecration and encounter events, and people have been really calling out to the Lord for a fresh season; laying their ministries, lives and everything they have before him afresh to submit to him fully.

“Then in January we had a day of consecration when we called all our ministers from across the nation to gather together. It was a powerful time in the presence of God, where people were freshly yielding themselves to him.”

As a result, the Elim family is seeing God move.

“We’re seeing that sense of family expressed in some really exciting ways. Many of our churches have been speaking on consecration on Sundays. We’ve encouraged them to lead their congregations into a season of consecration and exclusive devotion to the Lord.

“There have been some wonderful testimonies coming back of people’s renewed sense of walk with the Lord as a result of that. God is doing something deep and precious among us.”

What’s Next?

Next month’s ELS is nearly upon us – an event which will build on this year of consecration with its theme, “Equip the Saints”.

The past year has built solid foundations for this, says Mark.

“It’s brought a sense of togetherness around a spirituality that is allowing us to dig deeper into the things of God.

“I don’t believe we can reach this nation just by doing better versions of church. We can’t change the spiritual temperature just by singing the latest songs, having nicer buildings or preaching better sermons.

“We need a move of the Holy Spirit, and that will be evidenced in our nation when the church gets its house in order and when we have yielded ourselves to God.

“Revival is about those who were once alive coming alive again – the church, the people of God.

“And I see that as God’s call to us – to be a revived church, ready for all that the Lord is going to do in the nation.”

Church Reflections

Gordon Allan – Edinburgh Elim

We were already drawn to James 4:8 – “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you” – as our cornerstone verse for 2024. So when our new GS brought the call to consecration, we realised we were in the flow of what God was saying.

James 4:8 is fantastic – until you read the verses around it. It’s a hard call to leave behind influences and behaviours that don’t bother society but bother our Heavenly Father.

We saw more baptisms in 2024 than in any year since I’ve been pastor. One member even changed his social media habits in preference to the things of God. Another attended a nine-week residential course as a direct result of consecration through drawing near to God.

Tim Cooling – Elim Glossop

At Elim Glossop, we felt stirred to devote all of 2025 to the call to consecration. Just this week, our church leadership met in a back room and made space for God. Within minutes, people were passionately worshipping. Some were moved to tears.

There was a collective hunger for God and honesty in prayer. As we laid hands on each leader, God began to minister and speak. Words of encouragement and prophecy built us up.

Kevin Kirkland

When Mark talked about consecration at last year’s ELS, we ran a teaching series in January. We looked at it in Sunday services and followed up with Tuesday gatherings over food and worship.

When I preached at Edinburgh Elim last November, I was inspired by their focus on consecration and Haggai. In February, we did something similar – looking at being Kingdom-focused: our priority, perspective, purity, and purpose.

Joel Pridmore – Elim Aberystwyth

We were inspired and challenged by Mark’s call. We followed the pattern of focusing on personal, local church, and national consecration during the relevant months.

Our local consecration season lined up beautifully with our November fasting and prayer. It became a key focus in our monthly prayer and Sunday teaching. This inspired our next series: ‘Bible-shaped, Counter-cultural’, which ran through to January.

This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.