Sarah Joy Albrecht

Regardless of what you think about refusing treatment, listen to the argument at the end for the state trying to take over: “Parents don’t own their children, they are just stewards of their care.” Does this mean the state does own children?

The 13 year old boy does not want chemotherapy. Does that mean that we don’t even “own” ourselves?

Many implications and questions.

Comments?

This is a response to my friend Tara’s recent post on her blog, Considerable Grace. (Click here to read.)
I started to reply in the comments, but I realized it was a post in-and-of-itself :)

The question was,

…a friend of mine is leaving her (beloved) church to join a new one that is significantly closer to her home. No conflicts or theological disagreements, just a great opportunity to save a ton of driving while still remaining in the same denomination, involved in the same outreach and mercy ministries, etc… Her question for me was something to the effect of, “How do I make this move in the most loving and gracious way so as to AVOID causing any conflicts?”…

Big Idea: The Body of Christ is Bigger Than a Single Congregation

I believed this in my heart, but my eyes were opened when I went to Mitaka Evangelical Church in Japan for the first time. We struggled to communicate with words, but I instantly identified with the worshipful hearts of the members there. I learned that the body of Christ is even bigger than language barriers!

From the more academically focused churches, to the simple country church, to the Christian websites, to the evangelists, to English speaking churches to Japanese speaking churches – God’s Truth is being proclaimed to the nations, to people of all walks (and talks!) of life, and we need to rejoice over this!! We all need each other, and we’re all in team ministry with one another.

Applying the Big Idea: Freedom to Stay Involved With Your Former Church

If God’s plan is for you to move to a new church, He will not leave you nor your former congregation hanging. It is possible that your church back home may change in a positive way when you leave – think about it, if you were a church leader, formally or informally, someone else will now fulfill the role. Your former church may grow in new ways because of your move. Your new church may need the very gift/talent/personality set that God has given to you, and it may be an adjustment as you get accustomed to your new home and it gets accustomed to you. Growing pains produce growth. The transition might hurt at first, but God promises He will not leave His work incomplete.

When we catch the big idea here is that God is at work in every place, we can break free from sins like jealousy or coveting. It frees us from doing things like measuring people’s abilities as they fill in the role we left behind, or having the false idea that there is only one way to run a women’s ministry and critically comparing it to the one from your “perfect” former church. It frees us because our hearts are focused on praising God for His vastness. It frees us to appreciate each body of Christ for it’s uniqueness and beauty, and to praise God for the variety in the Church. It frees us to love and maintain friendships with our former church members without fear.

It is important beyond words to commit yourself to your local church. By being a member of our local church, we have the support and a foundation in place so that we can go forth to minister to other believers — in our former church and in the churches around the world! In many ways this commitment is similar to marriage and a family unit. Just like you wouldn’t let your own family go hungry so you can feed someone in need, do not take away your resources or your involvement in your local church to give to former church. That being said, I can’t think of a single person who doesn’t have time to pray for the needs of friends or to send a quick email of encouragement.

Maintaining Personal Relationships: Hints and Ideas

Just because you leave doesn’t mean that relationships have to die. I live in Japan, and I daily communicate with my loved friends, family and church members back home. It is important to me to do this, and therefore I make it a priority. Think of all the churches the Apostle Paul encouraged just through writing letters – which are still preserved for us to read today, I might add!

Communication can be done through good old-fashioned snail mail, the more recent invention called the telephone (with Vonage, long distance fees are history!), or even via the Internet. In addition to email, the Internet offers Facebook, Twitter, blogging, Skype, and more! By “stay in touch”, I mean showing love, caring for, praying for, etc. Annual family newsletters are great tools, but they cannot be the only communication with someone if you want to maintain a friendship with them.

If you find staying in touch with a number of people to be overwhelming, invest in a good address book program for your computer (because if you’re reading this, you probably have one!) that includes fields for notes, anniversaries, birthdays, how you last contacted them and when, and planned follow-up contact. While it’s romantic to think that you’ll remember all the important dates and to follow up on something, chance are, you’ll forget. The end result of planned contact is the same as spontaneous contact: you let the important people in your life know you care. The same tools for maintaining business contacts can be used to helping maintain personal relationships. This is the very reason caved in and I joined Facebook: to make it easier to maintain relationships with people I care about. I like it because I can keep up with my friends’ status updates, photos, notes, profiles, birthdays and other special events (with reminders!) and more — all in one place.

More Ideas for Staying Involved

Listen to sermons from your former pastor. From Japan, I am still listening to and growing from Gregg Strawbridge’s sermons at All Saints Presbyterian.

Ask to receive church newsletters in the mail.

Subscribe to any email groups related to your church and participate in the discussion.

Ask to know what people are studying in Bible studies. Buy a copy of the book and follow along and discuss them on the email group or with individuals.

Ask to know about church fund raising and give a special financial gift to your old church. We give to other Christian organizations, why not give to a congregation that has made a difference in your life ?

Attend special events, such as service-project days, bridal and baby showers, annual picnics or retreats. Even if you can no longer commute to the church regularly, visit once in a while to encourage and be encouraged by them. They are part of your family, just like the out-of-town relatives you make a priority to visit!

Ask to remain on the “prayer chain” so you can pray for the needs of the individual members and the church body as a whole. Remember to follow up with cards or emails, or even by sending flowers, as you may not have the chance to follow up in person.

Stay active in the meals ministry or other niche ministry groups. Offer to be a once-a-month backup for meals ministry in a pinch. If the ladies make quilts to welcome new babies in the church, and each lady makes a square, find out the dimensions and contribute a square. There are endless possibilities!

Ask for an up-to-date church directory, and asked to be kept in the directory as a “Friend of the Church” :) Missionaries are in the directory, and people can stay in touch with them… so it’s possible that you can be in the directory, too!

Communicate with the church body as a whole. Recognize that they miss you as much as you miss them. Encourage them as a congregation, as someone who knows their particular needs first hand. Send updates addressed to the whole church as to how you are doing, and how you are growing. Let them know of your prayer requests — and most importantly, how much you love them.

Saw this at Mommy Life and had to share!

Twelve year old Lia Mills wrote this speech for a contest at school. On March 12, 2009, she was given the Susan B. Anthony Young Leader Award.

My favorite line: “You have to remember that with our rights come responsibilities, and we can’t take someone else’s rights away to avoid our responsibilities.” (Wow. Applicable in so many ways!)

Mills ends the speech by bringing in a quote from Horton Hears a Who!

The full version of the speech can be found here.

I dedicate this hymn to my grandmother, Jean Phenicie. I’m looking forward to our next visit, when we can sing it together while she plays her baby grand.

During an Easter celebration, at a church in northern Japan, my friend Miyo secretly put my name in for the “talent show” to sing this song. She apparently had saved a scrawled copy of the lyrics I had shown her over coffee. She made a photo copy of the lyrics, and grabbed our mutual friend Karen. We had a five minute rehearsal in the foyer (which was quite chilly, being as there is still snow there in the early spring), and then the three of us sang in front of about 100 people.

The lyrics are based on Psalm 139.

Click HERE to listen to a really bad recording of me singing this song! :) Yes, I’m singing all three parts. Recorded in the tub room (where the acoustics were best) of our house in Japan.

Where can I go from Your Spirit, Lord
Where can I flee from Your face?
Darkness and light are alike to You.
You’re acquainted with all my ways

Even the dark is not dark to You,
And the night is as bright as the day
Try me and know all my anxious thoughts;
And Le-ad me in the everlasting way.

Your eyes they saw me before my birth
I am fearf’lly and wond’rflly made
Wonderful are all Your mighty works,
All my days for me you ordained

How precious are Your thoughts to me
they outnumber the grains of sand
You understand my thoughts from afar
You hold me up with your right hand

Tabitha went from being playful and fine to coughing, wheezing and a 103.1 F fever in the span of about two hours last night. (*Micah and Aiden have been coughing for the past few days, but no fever.)

Tom sat in the arm chair and hugged Tabitha, who was sitting on his lap, while we took her temperature. At one point, Tom smiled and said ‘Flever’. Instead of laughing, Tabitha flung her arms around his neck tightly and started to cry. “Oh no! What’s a flever?”, she said, thinking it was more serious than a fever.

Tom had to be at work at 6:30 this morning, and I finally made him go to bed at 1:30am while I waited a bit longer for Tabitha’s temperature to drop in the lukewarm bath – with bubbles to make it more fun!

Tabitha didn’t want the other kids to get sick because of her coughing and asked to sleep in the living room. (Tab’s such a thoughtful little pumpkin!) She and I quietly tiptoed around the sleeping kids – the tatami floor does a great job of muffling sneaky feet – and we carried out her futon, pillow and blankets to the living room.

I was really looking forward to “Tully’s at Ten” Bible study this morning, and to Easter dinner at church tonight, but I can’t make it to either. **This afternoon, I am cooking the lamb slices for the dinner, so one of my friends from church is going to pick it up on the way. (This same dear friend is momentarily bringing by a Tully’s coffee for me :) I am so happy the ladies are meeting this morning, with the biggest turnout yet, I might add, even though I couldn’t make it!)

Tabitha asked for apple pancakes this morning, so of course I obliged! As Becky would say, “Feet, don’t fail me now!”

Here is my favorite pancake recipe, concocted in a similar stupor to the one I’m in now as a matter of fact : ” ‘It StIlL FeElS LiKe MoNdaY’ Tuesday Morning Pancakes”

Although the recipe calls for Granny Smith Apples, we can’t get those here – just Aomori Apples. I have a feeling that to eat any other kind of apple here would offend the Japanese farmers! Aomori Apples are the sweetest apples I’ve ever tasted. Yet, unlike many sweet varieties, they are very crisp and good for baking. The oldest apple tree in Japan is in our town, Kashiwa. Check out Hello Kitty’s Travel Japan Blog on Aomori Apples, which has some great photos of our apple-themed town. )

Break’s over… Back to my day, reflecting on being a nurse for the Great Physician to get me through and on Psalm 139, (< --- click on the link! I wrote a song about it :) ), my favorite. -- * Ugh! Micah has a fever now! 101 degrees F. ** Miyo, my Japanese potter friend, and Karen, my English teacher friend from New Zealand, stopped by after Bible study! Karen brought a cappuccino for me, and Miyo offered to cook the lamb I had intended to bring to a church dinner and take it for me so I can rest! I feel so loved...

To think that a sin is too great for God to forgive is to think that Christ’s blood is not sufficient – that is, Christ’s sacrifice is not good enough.

This thought can be applied to our own lives, when we worry about that one sin we hope no one ever finds out about – or wish that no one had – or when we have a hard time forgiving others for what they have done to us.

Romans 8 (whole chapter)

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.’

Hebrews 9:11-14 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

1 John 2:1-2 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

One of my favorite tracts, which is now out of print, can be found in its entirety online here: I’m Still Learning to Forgive by Corrie ten Boom

(Before you continue reading, if you are not familiar with the story of Corrie ten Boom, please read this first.)

It was in a church in Munich where I was speaking in 1947 that I saw him–a balding heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat, the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones.

Memories of the concentration camp came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor, the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister’s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment of skin.

Betsie and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland. This man had been a guard at Ravensbruck concentration camp where we were sent.

Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: “A fine message, fraulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!”

It was the first time since my release that I had been face to face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze.

“You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk,” he was saying. “I was a guard there. But since that time,” he went on, “I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fraulein–” again the hand came out–“will you forgive me?”

And I stood there–and could not. Betsie had died in that place–could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?

It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out, but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.

For I had to do it–I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. “If you do not forgive men their trespasses,” Jesus says, “neither will your Father in Heaven forgive your trespasses.”

Still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. “Jesus, help me!” I prayed silently. “I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.”

And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.

“I forgive you, brother!” I cried. “With all my heart!”

For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.

With Corrie’s willingness came God’s power to forgive her former captor.

When you and I are willing to see our need for God’s forgiveness, He is willing and able to forgive our sins. The Bible says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” and that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 3:23; 6:23). But it goes on to explain that “God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

You too can know the same forgiveness and salvation that transformed Corrie and the former Nazi guard: “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).