The St. Martin's Prime Timers welcome you on the first week of Advent!

We meet each Sunday in the Payne Education Center from 10:10am to 10:50 in rooms 207-209. Advent is the season of Hope and we invite you to join us during this wonderful time of year in the Christian Church.

Announcements

Set aside Saturday, December 17th. Rick and Maud Ella Hartley are hosting the Prime Timers Christmas Party! Please RSVP to Maud Ella or Rick by December 10. There is a charge of $10, which includes dinner. Bring a bottle of your favorite wine!

We previously announced that December 11 was our Gospelling Sunday. That day all the A.B.F. groups will now be combined for a session with author James P. Moore discussing his new book One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America. So our Gospelling Sunday is re-scheduled for December 4th, with Prime Timer Dr. Bill Moore as our Gospeller. This is the Sunday when you might invite your Five Friends card people to join us!

Good News!

We set aside time every Sunday for our members to bring us their Good News.

This week Rita Junker-Pickar described her brother's bout with Raynaud's syndrome and that he is now ok. She also had a piano recital that went successfully.

Saying Goodbye

Today's vocabulary word is apostle, a title conferred on one sent with a message. In the Bible apostle usually refers to the original Twelve called by Jesus to accompany him during his ministry. From today's lesson we learned that others, such as Paul, were gradually included in this group, along with Matthias, who replaced Judas, and Barnabas.

Our reading for today has Paul concluding his three year stay in Ephesus and returning to Jerusalem. As our teacher Skip Maryan points out, our lesson plan has a "gap" in the reading where Paul speaks to the church elders, and all of a sudden they are weeping with the knowledge that they will not see Paul again. Here are the "missing" verses so you can judge for yourself if they were not needed:

Acts 20:29-35 29 I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. 30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. 31 So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.

   32 "Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. 33 I have not coveted anyone's silver or gold or clothing. 34 You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. 35 In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' "

The passage we have read today is the only place in Acts where Paul speaks directly to Christians, after all Paul's mission was to convert the Gentiles.

While parting can be sweet sorrow, it can also be a stressful situation. The discussion led to Skip's relating of the famous study of stressful situations in life, the Holmes and Rahe Social Readjustment Rating Scale. This lists forty-three stressful situations, with a rating for each. The top five are:

1) The death of a spouse
2) Divorce
3) Marital Separation
4) Jail Time
5) Death of a close family member.

In dealing with stressful situations there is the classic book by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross "On Death and Dying" describing the stages a dying patient goes through upon being told of their terminal condition, although we can recognize many of these conditions as applying to any stressful situation:

1) Denial (this isn't happening to me!)
2) Anger (why is this happening to me?)
3) Bargaining (I promise I'll be a better person if...)
4) Depression (I don't care anymore)
5) Acceptance (I'm ready for whatever comes)

Skip Maryan then led a healing prayer for the class and concluded with the benediction.

Prime Timers Contact names and numbers

Mentor

The Rev. Maurice L. "Rusty" Goldsmith. D.D.
713/985-3831
rgoldsmith@stmartinsepiscopal.org

Leader

The fabric frontals on the altar at St. Martin's change to brand new Sarum Blue, symbolizing hope, for Advent.

Dr. Bill Moore will be our Gospeller next week.

Rita Junker-Pickar will be returning as our teacher in January, today she had good news about a relative.

If you haven't seen the St. Martin's stained glass windows up close, you owe it to yourself to take the Docent's Tour of our New Church, on Sundays 12:30-1:30pm, and Wednesdays and Fridays 10:45am-12:30pm. Group Tours are available by appointment (713-830-4117)

 The Lesson for Sunday, December 4th is titled "Serving Others"

Key Verse:  Isaiah 42:6

Focus of the Lesson:  Injustices run throughout human  relationships on both a personal and a societal level. What can help us continue to hope and work for justice despite the overwhelming reality of our experience? Isaiah promises that God will bring justice to the world.

The reading is Isaiah 42:1-8. This text is from the New International Version^®.

1  "Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him
and he will bring justice to the nations.

2  He will not shout or cry out,
or raise his voice in the streets.

3  A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.
In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;

4  he will not falter or be discouraged
till he establishes justice on earth.
In his law the islands will put their hope."

5  This is what God the LORD says—
he who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it,
who gives breath to its people,
and life to those who walk on it:

6  "I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness;
I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you
to be a covenant for the people
and a light for the Gentiles,

7  to open eyes that are blind,
to free captives from prison
and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.

8  "I am the LORD; that is my name!
I will not give my glory to another
or my praise to idols.

NIV®