The Lenten Season is beginning!

Prime Timers is a St. Martin's Adult Bible Fellowship (A.B.F.) geared towards people in the Prime of Life, ages 50-64. We meet in the Payne Education Center in rooms 207-209 from 10:15am to 10:50. This year Easter falls about as early as it can, March 23. The last time Easter was this early was in 1913! St. Martin's is consolidating all the A.B.F.'s into one big class meeting in the Bagby Parish Hall during Lent, with members of the clergy conducting the classes. The next official meeting of Prime Timers will be March 30. In the meantime this page will update the readings for our class from the National Council of Churches.

Summoned to One Big Class!

All the St. Martin's A.B.F.'s are participating in a Lenten series of lectures by our clergy and others. To kick things off this week it was our privilege to hear from The Rev. J. Pittman McGehee, speaking about Loneliness and Love. Rev. McGeHee was dean of the Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Houston from 1980 to 1991. In 1991, he resigned from Christ Church Cathedral to become the director of The Institute for the Advancement of Psychology and Spirituality. The Institute joins the disciplines of psychology and religion by exploring the concept that mental health comes with the integration of the biological, psychological, and spiritual elements of the human condition. Rev. McGeHee spoke of the value of loving yourself, the bad as well as the good, as essential to being able to contribute to the community. He combined the science of psychology with the spirituality of religion in a very effective way. Next week we hear from our own Rev. John Bentley.

The Lesson for Sunday, February 24th is "Summoned to be a Disciple!"

Key Verse:  Luke 14:27

Focus of the Lesson: People look for a cause or a purpose that they can passionately support. What is worth giving up everything for? Jesus challenged the crowd to leave everything behind and become his disciples.

The reading is Luke 14:25-33. This text is from the New International Version. (NIV)

   ²⁵Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: ²⁶"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. ²⁷And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

   ²⁸"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? ²⁹For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, ³⁰saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'

   ³¹"Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? ³²If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. ³³In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.

NIV