Reviews

Friending: Real Relationships in a Virtual World

Brad Smith
Insights from Scriptures—and Stories
Those familiar with earlier books by Lynne Baab will be pleased but not surprised by this latest offering. It combines insights from the Scriptures and from secular academic sources, interspersed with lots of personal stories from her own life and that of her many friends... more

Sarah Sanderson
Thinking of giving up Facebook? What I learned from Friending
I’m about ten days into a Lenten fast from Facebook. I didn’t know if I’d be able to do it; I woke up on Ash Wednesday to several Facebook messages and wall posts that I needed to respond to. So I decided that for the next forty days, I’d use Facebook only to respond to people who’d specifically communicated with me, or to get in touch with people who I had to contact but whose phone or email information I did not have. more 

Reaching Out in a Networked World

Kimberlee Conway Ireton
New Media for Ordinary People
Lynne Baab has a gift for communicating technical information concisely and clearly so it is accessible to ordinary people. In this thought-provoking book she walks readers through a plethora of new communication media and the ways they can be wisely used in congregational life...

Rev. Monica McDowell
Staying Relevant and Faithful in a Changing World
Covering everything from iPods, blogs, and Facebook to fonts, graphics, and PowerPoint, Baab skillfully guided me through the maze of how to utilize new technology in order to effectively and ethically communicate a church's identity and values...

Barbara Bjelland
Prophetic Words for Congregations
Lynne Baab's book is a must-read for congregations who want to be intentional about their identity and values, and how they reach out in a world exploding with new communication technologies. Baab is an expert who has served in pastoral roles, earned a Ph.D. in communication, and now teaches pastoral theology.

Fasting: Spiritual Freedom Beyond Our Appetites

Rev. Monica McDowell Elvig
Fasting Reminds Us We Do Not Live By Bread Alone
The ancient spiritual practice of fasting is perhaps the most misunderstood of all the spiritual disciplines. Our culture’s contradictory obsessions with dieting and consumption lead to all the more confusion about the appropriate place for fasting in contemporary lives. Won’t it contribute to eating disorders? Doesn’t it denigrate the body and deny God’s good gifts of food and abundance? Questions like these are at the forefront of Lynne Baab’s mind in her newest book, Fasting...

Catherine Fransson
The Gift of Fasting for the Lenten Season
As Lent begins, now is a good time to explore what you’d like to learn during this year’s pilgrimage. Our tradition doesn’t require us to do anything. But the seasons of our lives offer special gifts only if we attune ourselves and offer our attention to God in a new way...

Sabbath Keeping: Finding Freedom in the Rhythms of Rest

Susan O’Loughlin Ward
A Gentle Antidote to Legalistic Lists
“Days pass, years vanish, and we walk sightless among miracles.” So says a Jewish Sabbath prayer quoted by Lynne Baab...This prayer describes our experience in the frenetic, materialistic, productivity-driven milieu which is the twenty-first century West. We miss the incredible treasures God has for us because we lack eyes to see and ears to hear...

Sarah Sanderson
Reflections on Rest From the Neonatal Care Unit
My daughter Abigail was born eight weeks early and spent the first three weeks of her life in the neonatal intensive care unit.  During those weeks, while sitting among plastic-walled incubators listening to the loud alarms of babies’ heart monitors, I quieted my own heart by reading Sabbath Keeping, a new book by my former pastor Lynne Baab...

Rev. Monica McDowell Elvig
Dine on This Sumptuous Feast
You are invited to a rich feast, a celebration of abundance, and an opportunity for rest and renewal—every week!  This is where Lynne Baab’s book on keeping the sabbath begins... Drawing from deep wells of personal experience and insights from a diversity of sabbath enthusiasts, the author has compiled a fresh and refreshing look at this ancient biblical ritual...

Jeanette Krantz
A Day of Rest from the Should's and Ought's
As a pastor’s wife with grown children I work as a nurse part time, serve on church committees, am involved with people in small groups and participate in ministry with my husband. I am pretty well set in routines, which, up until I read Sabbath Keeping, never led me to consider taking a full day each week to stop all work and rest. And for heaven’s sake what constitutes “rest”? 

Beating Burnout in Congregations

Rich Erickson
Preventing Burnout and Its Ugly Consequences
Lynne M. Baab, a Presbyterian minister in Seattle, and one of my former students, has authored four books already. It’s a case of student leaving teacher in the dust!...Lynne Baab deals with a disturbing irony: eager and active leaders in local congregations all too often find themselves exhausted and bitter in serving the church...

Brad Smith
Asking Some Tough Questions
...Congregations face a shrinking pool of volunteers as fewer women are now at home, and even stay-at-home moms have a schedule of sports and after-school lessons unheard of a generation ago. Those who are available feel the pressure...

 

books reviewed

Friending: Real Relationships in a Virtual World

Reaching Out in a Networked World


Fasting

Sabbath Keeping

Beating Burnout


©Copyright 2010-2011 by Lynne M. Baab; email Lynne at LMBaab[at]aol.com