Anoint

Oil. It’s used for many things. Cooking, moisturizing, lubricating, and anointing. I’m sure there are other uses but those are the ones that come immediately to mind. What I’ve been thinking about lately though is the kind of oil used for anointing purposes. Here in America, or in the circles I run around in at least, we use oil as more of a symbolism. A tiny dab on the forehead and a prayer whispered for healing or consecration. The dab is pretty much dry by the time the prayer has been uttered and the person returns to their seat.





But I got to see firsthand oil used in a greater capacity than just a tiny dab.


Our first Sunday in Mathare Valley (June 2009) found us sitting with our Kenyan brothers and sisters worshipping together as one, each of us in our own language. It was a great service, an especially meaningful time of worshipping the Creator as one Body. This was also the Sunday that Pastor Karau decided to anoint two other Pastors into service for the Body at large, for the people of Mathare Worship Center and the surrounding slum community. In this anointing he asked our Pastor, Al Pittman, to participate and to be the one who prayed over these Pastors.


{Now let me just depart Kenya for a moment and return to America and its practices. I have seen Pastors ordained and it’s this 2 minute thing on a Sunday morning during announcements and the Senior Pastor lays hands on the newly ordained Pastor and his wife and prays over them and everyone claps politely and we go about our nice service. Right? In the majority of evangelical churches this is how it’s done. There will be a few that depart from that formula but they are the exception not the rule. Okay, so that’s the norm for our experiences in Pastors being ordained. That being made clear let’s return to Kenyan experience.}

Pastor Karau called up the one of the two Pastors being anointed, or ordained, that day. The wife came with her husband, the Pastor. Because if one is called then they are both called. They knelt down in front of Pastor Karau, and for this occasion Pastor Al as well. A towel was placed around their shoulders to protect their clothing. This should have been a huge clue to me yet I still didn’t “get” it. The oil was brought forth and began to flow over the heads of both the Pastor and his wife. I’m not talking dabs here, I’m talking a steady flow pouring over the tops of their heads and running down over their faces, down their necks and soaking into the towels. While the oil is flowing Pastor Karau starts praying over the couple. Loudly. With affection, exhortation, affirmation, challenge, and consecration. This was a serious moment, a moment that was not to be taken lightly or without reverence. The congregation responded in appropriate manner, with an understanding that “this” was serious. “This” being the business of consecrating someone for the sacred work of God. I’m not sure that at first any of us Americans knew what to think. But by the time Pastor Al started praying over the first couple we had gotten over the “looksies” and the discomfort of the differences and had bowed our heads in response to this moment that we were being privileged to bear witness to. It was…powerful. Consecration is nothing to play around with. Setting yourself aside for the sake of a cause or a creed is saying that you recognize that the universe doesn’t circle around you. After the first couple was thoroughly prayed over and for they called up the second couple and did the same thing. People, this was NOT some 2 minute thing during announcements. This was the service after the service! This was recognition that these four people were making a choice to dedicate their lives, their very selves to the work and Kingdom of God. And we got to witness this covenant occasion because it was a covenant agreement that they entered into. The next Sunday saw us bear witness to Round Two! We traveled about 4 hours outside of Nairobi to Weru and again watched our American and Kenyan Pastors anoint into service another Pastor.

These ceremonies had a profound impact on each of us. I feel pretty certain that none of us had ever realized the seriousness of such a commission, the sacredness of the call, the value in the anointing. Oh we say we do but do we? Do we really get “it”? No. I’ll be honest for the majority. No, we don’t get “it”. How can I know that? Because if we really got “it” we would give it more than 2 minutes during Sunday morning announcements. We would be okay with it being the service rather than the schedule we have been following for years. I’ll be honest. I would have been good with the consecration ceremony; we could have foregone the actual “real” service that day because that consecration was real enough for me! Sometimes we should throw schedules out the door (GASP! A “Type A” that thinks that? Says that?) and go with the lead of the Spirit. And we say we do but we don’t really. We don’t. It’s time to start being real about this stuff.


I wonder about my Kenyan family when they come here to America and attend our churches. Do they feel stifled? Do they feel constrained by the schedule, oh I’m sorry, the “order of service”? I may sound sarcastic here and there is a bit of that tingeing my words but I’m also being very serious. I think we may have taken the directive from God to keep everything orderly a bit too far. Seems to me we have taken it so far that now there is no room for movement of the Holy Spirit. What if worship is movin’ and groovin’ and there is a heavy presence of God but oh, 20 minutes is up so we have to stop the movement of the Spirit so we can keep to our “order of service”. Wow. I’m pretty certain that God didn’t mean that we should be keeping things THAT orderly. Experiencing worship at Mathare Worship Center has filled me, while there, with deep satisfaction that I worshipped God. Experiencing worship, while here in the United States, has filled me with a deep hunger to worship without “order of service” dictating the worship. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying anything negative about my church or the American church necessarily. It sounds like it, I know. But I’m really not. I’m just experiencing a shift in my expression of worship and my experiences in Kenya have played a huge role in the shifting. I have found myself longing for my Kenyan church more and more as this shift happens within me. The amazing thing is that my American church and my Kenyan church are intertwined, partnering with each other and so both feel like home. My Pastors are solid teachers of the Word and the worship leaders at both churches are amazing but in America we have an order of service that we strictly adhere to and in Kenya there’s an order of service but there is also room for change, for a different direction if necessary. In any American church that I have ever attended that has not been the case.


I went off on a small rabbit trail so I’ll veer back on course. :) 


Anointing. In the Old Testament it is a ceremony mostly reserved for Priests and consecrating of God’s chosen for positions of royalty. But in the New Testament it becomes something for all because the temple curtain tore in two from top to bottom and gave us access to God like had never been available before. (Matthew 27:50-51) In fact, Paul in 2 Corinthians affirms that we are all anointed by God when we accept him, “Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” (1:21-22) Other versions point to anointing as a commissioning. This keeps in line with what the purpose of anointing is. It is to commission one to act on behalf of the Commissioner. And because of what Jesus did on the cross on behalf of the Father for us (Get it? He was anointed to do that work, i.e. commissioned – Isaiah 61:1-3), we are anointed by God when we accept the gift of salvation offered through Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection. And notice what comes along with that anointing…the Spirit. So as it turns out perhaps my rabbit trail wasn’t really one at all. We cannot live in our anointing without the Holy Spirit. They are a package deal, so to speak. If we forget to rely on the Holy Spirit then our anointing becomes ineffective. Ever get a whiff of oil that has gone rancid? ICK. That’s what happens to us when we forget to let the Holy Spirit direct our comings and goings. Our anointing can get rancid and then we become ineffective.


All this points to the seriousness, the sacredness, and the value of the anointing of God. Where God and His Spirit are involved there should be a reverence of that moment. Not all of us are going to have a ceremony where oil is literally poured over our heads but that doesn’t mean that the anointing we have received from God is any less significant. Figuratively he has poured oil over our heads and it has trickled down our faces, over our shoulders and covered our hearts. It is a sign of his seal on our lives, and it is the symbol of the Holy Spirit directing our personal and spiritual actions.


The Pastors that we witnessed entering into covenant agreement with God through the anointing they received from Pastor Al and Pastor Karau?  They haven't allowed the oil to go rancid.  They consistently and continually rely on the direction of the Holy Spirit as they minister to the church Body and to the slum community around them.  If the Spirit interrupts their plans for His plans they go with the flow.  Because of their willingness to be led by the Spirit there has been great increase in Mathare Valley and Weru.  It has been a blessing to watch the Lord's work get accomplished through these couples who so publicly, and privately, consecrated themselves to a work so much bigger than them knowing that the Spirit would lead them where they need to go.  It has served to be an example for me to look to as I consider my anointing from God and the directions the Spirit is pointing me in.  Once again the Lord has used my experiences in Kenya in ways I never anticipated but am so grateful for!