Two 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 DevotionalDraw Near: Lenten Devotional by Lynne Baab, illustrated by Dave Baab

Quotations I love: Make it beautiful

Lynne Baab • Wednesday April 28 2021

Quotations I love: Make it beautiful

“If it can’t be happy, make it beautiful. . . . I hope that, in the midst of your sorrow and the bleakness of what you’re facing, you can yet find a way to make it beautiful. . . . The pandemic has been an experience of powerlessness and sadness for most of us. It hasn’t been happy. But we can still make it beautiful.” —Samuel Wells, vicar of St. Martin-in-the Fields, next to Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery in London

I love Samuel Wells’s distinction between happiness and beauty. I find it easy to conflate the two. I have seen so...

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Quotations I love: Listen to the sermon preached to you by the flowers

Lynne Baab • Wednesday April 7 2021

Quotations I love: Listen to the sermon preached to you by the flowers

“Let all creation help you to praise God. Give yourself the rest you need. When you are walking alone, listen to the sermon preached to you by the flowers, the trees, the shrubs, the sky, the sun and the whole world. Notice how they preach to you a sermon full of love, of praise of God, and how they invite you to proclaim the greatness of the one who has given them being.”      —Saint Paul of the Cross (1694-1775), founder of the Passionist Order and preacher

At 20, one year after I became a committed Christian, I spent a lot of...

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Psalm 96: A call to prayer for the nations

Lynne Baab • Wednesday October 21 2020

Psalm 96: A call to prayer for the nations

Back in the 1990s, I used to teach for a program called Perspectives on the World Christian Movement. I was assigned one of the 15 lessons, and I travelled to different churches around the Northwest to teach my lesson. When I would tell friends the title of my lesson – “the biblical basis of mission in the Old Testament” – they would often say, “What? There’s mission in the Old Testament?”

To help my students get beyond that perspective, I would begin the class session by reading them Psalm 96, asking them to count the references to the whole world. They came...

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Spiritual diary of sheltering in place: The lifeline of God’s distant future

Lynne Baab • Wednesday May 27 2020

Spiritual diary of sheltering in place: The lifeline of God’s distant future

I have always loved the passages in the Bible where the whole creation is encouraged to praise God. Psalm 96:11-12 is one example:

“Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;         let the sea roar, and all that fills it;        let the field exult, and everything in it. Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy        before the LORD.”

If I were writing these words at this time, I would add something like “because you, beautiful creation, have become a lifeline for so many people during this pandemic. You reflect God’s creativity and beauty. You speak to us of timelessness and of...

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Featured books

Two Hands: Grief and Gratitude in the Christian Life Two Hands: Grief and Gratitude in the Christian Life A book for people grieving because of the pandemic, health challenges, family conflict, or other losses, while also seeing so many things to be thankful for. A book for small groups – each of the seven chapters has discussion questions at the end. A book for Advent and Lent. This book draws on a vivid word picture of holding grief in one hand and gratitude in the other, and allowing ourselves to be stretched large by both.
 Buy online » Joy Together: Spiritual Practices for Your Congregation Joy Together: Spiritual Practices for Your Congregation Although interest in spiritual practices has grown in recent years, most of the books available address individuals who wish to try Christian disciplines such as fasting or fixed-hour prayer.

This book, by contrast, offers guidance and examples to Christian leaders as they seek ways to involve their congregations or small groups in spiritual practices. Buy online »

Featured articles

New: Yes, Jesus Told Us to Pray in Secret. But He Also Prayed with His Friends.

Lynne Baab • Saturday October 9 2021

By Lynne M. Baab. Originally published in Christianity Today, July 8, 2021

Listening for God: The Joy of Spiritual Practices

Lynne Baab • Sunday August 9 2020

Originally published in Horizons: The Magazine of Presbyterian Women. May/June 2019, 11-14.

AWARD WINNER - To be a Neighbour Must Include Listening

Lynne Baab • Friday February 5 2016

This article won a 2017 award from the Australian Religious Press Association for the best social justice article. Social justice didn't cross my mind as I wrote the article. I was just thi...