Draw Near: Lenten Devotional by Lynne Baab, illustrated by Dave BaabTwo Hands: Grief and Gratitude in the Christian LifeA Renewed SpiritualityNurturing Hope: Christian Pastoral Care in the Twenty-First CenturyThe Power of ListeningJoy Together: Spiritual Practices for Your CongregationSabbath Keeping FastingPrayers of the Old TestamentPrayers of the New TestamentSabbathFriendingA Garden of Living Water: Stories of Self-Discovery and Spiritual GrowthDeath in Dunedin: A NovelDead Sea: A NovelDeadly Murmurs: A NovelPersonality Type in CongregationsBeating Burnout in CongregationsReaching Out in a Networked WorldEmbracing MidlifeAdvent Devotional

An option for Lent: focus on growing as a listener

Lynne Baab • Wednesday January 28 2015

An option for Lent: focus on growing as a listener

Our ability to listen is not set in stone. We can grow as listeners. In the past five or six years, I’ve been reading, teaching and writing about listening. Everything I’ve learned indicates that listening skills can be developed.

Why might listening be a skill to focus on during Lent? Aren't fasting or trying to pray more often more typical Lenten practices?

Almost any Lenten practice is better than doing nothing. Maybe this is a year for you to try fasting from something different or praying in a new way. Those are great ideas. But if you’re wondering why I might recommend growing...

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Growing in thankfulness

Lynne Baab • Wednesday January 21 2015

Growing in thankfulness

Just over twenty years ago my husband and I began a habit that has changed the way we pray individually, with each other and in groups. At that turning-point moment, we decided to try to begin every prayer time with a few prayers of thankfulness.

At that time, Dave and I usually prayed together before bedtime a couple of times each week, and we had begun to notice that our prayers seemed repetitive, boring, and often desperate. It was a stressful time. Dave was deeply unhappy at his work. Our kids had entered adolescence, and we were baffled and frustrated by their...

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Money, generosity and transformation into Christ’s image

Lynne Baab • Friday January 16 2015

Money, generosity and transformation into Christ’s image

Money was my father’s joy in life. He loved earning it, and he especially loved investing it and managing it. My bedtime stories in elementary school involved tales of how compound interest works and why it is so wonderful. Dinner conversation in my teen years involved lessons about the Fed and how its actions impact inflation. When I took economics 101 in college, I was bored out of my mind. Doesn’t everybody know this stuff, I wondered. Don’t their fathers teach them?

As you can imagine, my father’s teaching about money impacted me profoundly. In my teen years, I was very, very...

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Journey with Jesus to the cross during Lent

Lynne Baab • Tuesday January 6 2015

Journey with Jesus to the cross during Lent

In April of last year, I got an email from the editor of Presbyterians Today, a lovely magazine published by the Presbyterian Church USA. The editor asked me if I would be interested in writing their devotional for Lent 2015. He gave me a sample of the 2014 devotional, based on one of the gospels, and told me each entry needed to have a scripture to read, one verse from that scripture, then 125 words of reflection on the scripture, which would include a brief prayer.

As I pondered his email, I realized several things. If I did it, I would want...

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