Raising Leaders of Anointing, Not Just Ability
Why the Next Generation Needs Anointed Leaders, Not Impressive Ones
Every generation carries a responsibility, not just to do something, but to carry what it received and pass it on faithfully. Like a baton, not a bonfire. Genesis establishes the principle from the very beginning. Something is given, something is received, something is stewarded and passed forward. That’s not a limitation, that’s actually passing on a legacy.
The Generation We’re Handing the Torch To
Let me speak plainly about Gen Z for a moment, because I think we owe it to them to get this right.
When I grew up as a millennial, I remember life before the internet. Many of us have a before and an after. A reference point. Gen Z doesn’t have that. All they have ever known is the ‘www.’, the scroll, the highlight reel, the performance of identity at scale.
And what’s remarkable about that is that it’s made them incredibly sharp at detecting what’s real! Ha!
They’ve been soaked in fake for so long that when something genuine walks into the room, they feel it immediately. It’s why they lean so hard into (buzz word approaching) ‘authenticity’. They’re not naive, they’re actually the most discerning generation we’ve seen in a long time. They can tell the difference between someone who has something and someone who is performing something.
Which means this: if we are going to lead the next generation well, we cannot afford to lead from the surface OR raise leaders as ‘surface only’ individuals.
Our responsibility as a generation is to model a kind of leadership that holds up under that scrutiny. Not just leadership that looks good. Not just leadership that is competent. But leadership that carries the weight of genuine anointing, the kind that God recognises, even when the crowds don’t.
Here’s where this got me thinking…
Everyone Expected Eliab
Turn to 1 Samuel 16, and you’ll find one of the most quietly devastating scenes in the Old Testament.
Samuel arrives at Jesse’s house to anoint the next King of Israel. Jesse lines up his sons. And when Eliab walks in, tall, first-born, broad-shouldered, the kind of man you’d write into the role, Samuel takes one look and thinks, “Surely. This is the one.”
Surely.
That word is doing a lot of work. It’s the word of assumption. Of pattern recognition. Of: “I’ve seen this before, I know how this goes.” And God stops him in his tracks.
“Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” — 1 Samuel 16:7
What hits me every time I read this is that Eliab wasn’t unimpressive. He was genuinely able. He had everything you’d put on a leadership profile. Height, presence, pedigree. And none of it was enough.
Man measures in height, but God measures in weight.
One is superficial. The other is substance. And you can have the first in abundance and still be completely disqualified from what matters.
So be careful of who you assume God will and won’t use. Be careful of your “surely.” Because while everyone is standing in the room congratulating Eliab, David is out in the field with the sheep, unnoticed, unannounced, unaware that heaven has its eye on him. God loves doing that. It consistently staggers me how much He loves to use the unlikely.
The Difference Between Able and Anointed
Here’s the distinction this passage is driving at, and it’s one I think our generation of leaders needs to sit with seriously:
Eliab was able. David was anointed.
Those are not the same thing, and one does not automatically produce the other.
Ability is what you bring. Anointing is what God rests on you. You can sharpen ability. You can develop ability. You can perform ability on a Sunday morning in front of a crowd who’ll never know the difference. But anointing, that’s something else.
Isaiah 10:27 KJV puts it plainly: the yoke is destroyed because of the anointing. Not because of the strategy. Not because of the eloquence. Not because of the execution.
If you want things to actually shift, and I mean genuinely shift, not just move, you need to understand where the power actually comes from.
You can preach until you’re blue in the face.
You can craft something clever.
You can alliterate until you’ve accidentally become a primary school teacher.
And you might impress people.
But God isn’t impressed by that.
Remember; where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, and you cannot manufacture that. It must be stewarded.
This is what I want us to be building into the next generation of leaders. Not a cookie-cutter version of how we communicate or what our ministries look like. But a deep, rooted understanding of what the difference maker actually is. Lives wholly focussed on Jesus, right?
