**Today’s blog post specifically speaks to ministers. If you are not a minister, please read it and pray over your pastor.**
“Then Samuel said to the people, “Come let us go to Gilgal and there renew the kingship.” So all the people went to Gilgal and made Saul king in the presence of the Lord, and Saul and all the Israelites held a great celebration.
(1 Samuel 11:14-15 NIV)
I noticed today how there were three distinct parts to King Saul’s inauguration: anointing, installation and renewal. The Israelites didn’t truly recognize him as a their leader until these three markers had been met.
Saul’s journey to kingship made me think about my own journey into spiritual leadership. It also has three distinct parts: calling, ordination and recommittal. Like Saul’s anointing there was a divine appointment in my story, years ago, that I had very little to do with setting. God simply showed up, poured His Spirit out, and altered the course of my days forever with a divine calling. A few years later after loads of coursework and a drawn-out series of interviews, I presented myself for ordination, much like Saul showed up for inauguration. There’s a needed cooperation at this second level – a partnership with divine agenda and Holy Spirit leading. The last, maybe most essential piece of this commitment happens some time later and likely not publicly. The minister has been leading a while, with some success but also notable failure. He or she reaches a place of critical mass: they fully embrace their calling, committing again, or they turn from it entirely. It’s the point in the story where they choose God for themselves. It’s no longer God acting upon them, or even a cooperation, but a personal election to go God’s way with their story.
The truth is, we lose a lot of ministers in this last stage of ministerial leadership. Part of the challenge is that theres’ no timeline for renewal: it could be necessary in the first six months of full-time ministry or it could be thirty years later. The timing is subject to change, but the threshold remains constant: what will you do when you want to quit?
Bible schools and seminaries need to prepare their pastoral candidates for this question because it is inevitable in ministry. It is the third and most solidifying level of spiritual leadership. When the going gets rough, will we pack our bags and find a more satisfying and solves career, or will we renew our ordination covenant and go the distance with God?
I’m beginning to realize that renewal is not a one-time occasion. Lifeling ministers reaffirm their commitment to God’s call over and over again. It’s much like marriage: a pledge to love, honor and cherish is only as good as that day’s actions. Marital love is a daily decision: when we stop deciding the marriage falters. Ordination is much the same: a lifetime consecration to God’s service, acted out each and every day.
King Saul missed this. He stopped renewing his vows as King. We see this as soon as chapter 13, when he would not wait for God’s leading at Gilgal (the very place of his inaugural renewal). Saul took matters into his own hands and offered sacrifices in his own strength. He acted as priest and king in the same breath: an earthly assignment designated for Jesus alone. Saul forgot his commitment to God and brought terrible trouble on His people.
“You have done a foolish thing.” Samuel said. “You have not kept the commandment the Lord your God gave you; if you had He would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure’ the Lord has sought out a man after His own heart and appointed him ruler of His people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command.”
(1 Samuel 13:13-14 NIV)
When we, as ministers, forget to renew our covenant, our attention to God’s commands can slip. We can find ourselves like King Saul, a long way off from God’s original intentions for His people.
Lord, today we participate again in that third step of spiritual leadership: we renew our covenant with You. We remember our calling. We revel in our ordination experience. And we recommit to a lifetime spent serving Your Kingdom. Keep Your commands engraved on our hearts as we love people towards eternity. We want to live as men and women in wholehearted pursuit of You. Amen.