Welcome to the St. Martin's Prime Timers A.B.F. Web Page!

You are invited to visit with us each Sunday from 10:10am to 10:50 in rooms 207-207 of the Payne Education Center. Bring a friend! We are following a lesson plan from the National Council of Churches that just started a new season September 4th. A great time for you join us!

Hurricane Katrina efforts continue and the City of Houston and St. Martin's Church are playing a role.  Click here to learn more about our mission.

Good News

At the beginning of our class we set aside time for Good News from our members. For $1 you can tell us what's going on in your life, and contribute to a good cause. Our Good News chicken is called Henny Penny, although today someone said it looks like a rooster!

Rick Hartley volunteered to help the Houston refugees down at George R. Brown Convention Center. He reports that the people are grateful for our help, contrary to what you sometimes see on television.

Bobbie Griffith-Winner has 10 family members affected by the Hurricane.

The Gift of Healing 

Today's first vocabulary word is soteria. This is the Greek word for healing, having a breadth of meaning including rescue from danger, restoration of health, survival and salvation. In the early Christian community there was no distinction between an economic restoration, reconciliation between enemies, a healing or assurance of divine favor. Soteria was also the Greek goddess of safety and of deliverance and preservation from harm.

The reading for the week (Acts 3:1-16) has Peter and John heading for the temple at 3pm, a significant time since it refers to the hour Jesus died on the cross. They come across a beggar, crippled from birth, asking for money on the temple steps. Peter looks right at him and says he doesn't have any money but he can and does heal the beggars legs. The beggar leaps to his feet, following Peter and John into the temple and rejoicing. Peter then tells the people in the temple that this is the power of the man they had just sent to death, while they freed a murderer.

The rest of this chapter, Acts 3:17-26 continues this sermon, with Peter advising the people in the temple to repent. Rita tied the vocabulary word for today, soteria, into this story of healing in that healing could mean other things than just physical well-being. It could mean economic restoration, for instance. Allegorically, we are like the beggar in the story, being freed from our infirmities by Jesus.

After providing this broad definition of healing and reading from Acts, Rita asked if anyone had a personal story to illustrate the healing of the Bible. She related her own experience with the IRS after her father passed away. She had trouble with an agent, but then read in the Bible that people in authority should have respect. After relating to the situation with this in mind her final outcome was positive.

Then Joyce Crowl related her own amazing story of being diagnosed with an enlarged heart. The doctors gave her some medicine but told her that not much more could be done, and that surgery was out of the question. A student invited her to dinner at his house and he and his mother related how they were involved in an international prayer group that sent prayers around the world and asked if they could pray for her. They all prayed and several weeks later Joyce returned to the doctor to find that her heart had shrunk to normal size and that a previously undiagnosed valve leakage in her heart had stabilized. The doctor called it a miracle! Praise the Lord.

Marty Smith concluded our session with our healing prayer, and then Rita read the Benediction.

Prime Timers Contact names and numbers

Mentor

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

Leader

Rita Junker-Pickar continues our journey through Acts for the month of September.

Rick Hartley told us about volunteering for the Katrina victims at George Brown Center.

Bobby Griffith-Winner reminded us of what we have to be grateful for.

 The Lesson for Sunday, September 25th is titled "Power to Be Bold"

Key Verse:  Acts 4:29

Focus of the Lesson:  Courage and conviction lead people to witness for good. What gives us courage to do the same as Christians? Acts shows that God's Spirit encouraged and emboldened the early Christians, and it can do so with us today.

The reading is Acts 4:1-4, 23-31. This text is from the New International Version.

   1 The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. 2 They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. 3 They seized Peter and John, and because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. 4 But many who heard the message believed, and the number of men grew to about five thousand.

The Believers' Prayer

   23 On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. 24 When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. "Sovereign Lord," they said, "you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. 25 You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:
   " 'Why do the nations rage
   and the peoples plot in vain?
   26 The kings of the earth take their stand
   and the rulers gather together
   against the Lord
   and against his Anointed One.' 27 Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. 28 They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. 29 Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. 30 Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus."

   31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

NIV®