Welcome to the St. Martin's Prime Timers Adult Bible Fellowship.

Join us each Sunday in the Payne Education Center, rooms 207-209, from 10:10 to 10:50. During Lent this year the Clergy will teach the ABF classes. Our Mentor, Vice-Rector Rev. Massey Gentry is teaching the Prime Timers. This is a special time of year and you are invited to join us. I promise you Rev. Gentry will not be dressed as a hippie!

Prime Timer News

The Prime Timers theme was the 60's! You can click on these photos for a better look!

Prime Timers Mentor, the Rev. Massey Gentry at the St. Martins Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper.

The Rev. Ron Morris as Moses! The Seekers theme was "Before Christ."

The Single Adults ABF theme was the Seventies, with their mentor the Rev. John "Travolta" Graham. On the right is the Shrove Tuesday award.

Lent is the season for self-examination.

Our Mentor, St. Martin's Vice Rector the Rev. Massey Gentry taught class today and will be teaching for the season of Lent. Today his lesson is about self-examination. He began telling us that most people see themselves in a fundamentally different way than other people see them. He used himself as an example. As an Episcopal minister he is given deference at many of the places he goes. And yet he does not see himself as someone who should get this treatment. He said he has the same desires, concerns, fears and failings as the rest of us.

He gave an example of a minister in Indianola Mississippi who wore argyle socks in public and would go into the grocery store in his minister's attire and buy a six-pack of beer! He saw himself as being honest with people, however, as you can imagine it created problems in his parish.

The Outward Bound organization was founded by a German, Kurt Hahn, back during World War II when he noticed that when ships went down it was the older crew members who were more likely to survive than the younger, just the opposite of what you might expect. This is attributed to the ability of older people to adapt to new situations. Massey is an avid Outward Bounder, looking forward to his next event. One part of an Outward Bound adventure is when you are placed on an island or someplace by yourself, left to your own devices in the great outdoors. Massey described his surprise to learn that a twenty year old on one tour was totally afraid of this. He had never spent a night alone in his entire life!

Class member Randy Riddel was forced to confront his own feelings during his wife's pregnancy. What if his new unborn son had a defect, or mental illness? Would he be able to live with this? He got over this by considering what if he had a child who had a terrible accident and lost an arm. Would you get rid of the child! Of course not. For Randy, this was a moment when "all the gears in my head" shifted and everything fell into place. His son, as it turned out is fine and now a member of the U.S. Military.

George Laigle felt that there is so much evil in the world now, is it really possible to "love your neighbor". Massey said yes, that Jesus does command us to love even people who would do us ill, in fact these are the people who really test our own faith. Another member reminded us that while we should pray for evil people, we do not have to be victimized by them.

Massey gave us an assignment for this session, and you are invited to try it as well. Take one of the Ten Commandments and think about it during your week, several times a day. Exodus 20:1-17 or Deuteronomy 5:1-21  are a good place to start.

Another way to start your Lenten self-examination is to repeat this from Matthew 22:37-40: Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' ³⁸This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' ⁴⁰All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

Prime Timers Contact names and numbers

Mentor

Rev. B. Massey Gentry
mgentry@stmartinsepiscopal.org

Leaders

The Rev. Disco John Graham accepts the Shrove Tuesday Award for best float. The theme was the 70's.

Rev. Hyche brought back the 80's with a Miami Vice theme.

Our Rector, the Rev. Larry Gipson is retiring this year. Some of our Young People created "Future Larry" as their float. Rev.Gipson is looking at a TV and in his hand is a remote control.

The Rev. Bob Brown as a Bomber Pilot. The theme was the Forties!

The Rev. John Bentley as a Cold War Rebel in a Fifties theme complete with penny loafers!

The Seekers crew. Click on this to read the tablet in Shirley McAlister's hand!

Seven Christian Habits:

1.  A personal, intimate relationship (through the Holy Spirit) with God as He is revealed in Jesus Christ in which I believe and trust in Him and His love for me and for my salvation in this life and the life to come.

2.  Daily personal prayer and weekly worship of God in His Church by which I receive the renewal of my emotional-spiritual energy which I need to live my life.

3.  Regular study of the Bible to understand how God has related to His people and what His will has been.

4.  Adjusting my will to the will of God for me as revealed in Scripture, prayer, worship and my relationship with Him.

5.  Service (which is ministry, which is love, which is doing good to God, others and self):

a. At home to family and friends.
b. At work to co-workers.
c. At Church.
d. In the world, especially by leading others to God in Christ.

6.  Fellowship (renewing relationship) with Christian people.

7.  Stewardship of my resources:

a. Of my relationships.
b. Of my time and talent.
c. Of my money, giving to God and His work my tithe (as I calculate it).

The Lesson for Sunday, March 4th is titled "Love is Light"

Key Verse:  1 John 2:10

Focus of the Lesson:  The way individuals treat other people is often a good indication of how they really feel about them. What caution does this raise for us a Christians? John says that we cannot claim to love God and then treat one another shabbily, because love of God and love of neighbor are inseparable. Indeed, we are able to truly love one another because the light of the diving love has made us all children of God.

The reading is 1 John 2:7-11, 15-17. This text is from the New International Version^®.

Background Scripture:  1 John 2:7-17

   ⁷Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. ⁸Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.

   ⁹Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. ¹⁰Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. ¹¹But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.

  ¹²I write to you, dear children,
       because your sins have been forgiven
       on account  of his name.
  ¹³I write to you, fathers,
      because you have known him
      who is from the beginning.
   I write to you, young men,
      because you have overcome the evil one.
   I write to you, dear children,
      because you have known the Father.
  ¹⁴I write to you, fathers,
       because you have known him
       who is from the beginning.
     I write to you, young men,
       because you are strong,
       and the word of God lives in you,
       and you have overcome the evil one.

   ¹⁵Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. ¹⁶For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. ¹⁷The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

NIV®