“Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Simon, who was called the Zealot, and Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.” (Luke 6:12-16)

“When he chose his own apostles who were to preach the Gospel, [he chose those] who were sinners above all sin, so that he might show that he came “not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Pseudo-Barnabas, A.D. 120 – 130)

We often think that one hour of worship in prayer, praise and thanksgiving is a great feat. I once sat beside a man in a church choir who, if the service was approaching one hour, would constantly look at his watch and frown. To him, a worship service should go no longer than 55 minutes.

Christ spent whole nights engaged in prayer, praise and thanksgiving. Our concern should not be to count time in worship but to make the best of the time that G-d has given to us. The twelve apostles are called not because of the skills they possessed but because Jesus saw something in each one that gave them potential. And then Jesus gave them all the time they needed to learn from him.

Many in our society come a long distance to hear Jesus — it is indeed worthwhile to go a great way to hear the word of Christ. Therefore it is a great disservice to all in worship to focus more on the clock than on the word, teachings and grace of Jesus. After all, which is more difficult for our society, diseases of the body or diseases of faith? Coming out of this pandemic we will see many changes in the way we worship and the way we gather in the name of Christ. It will become more important for the church to teach members to expand their minds, hearts and schedule books – for scripture teaches us to think differently than our society.

Pastor Dave