Nurturing 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 GrowthA Renewed SpiritualityDeath 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

Creative prayer: trees

Lynne Baab • Friday July 19 2019

Creative prayer: trees I was 15 the first time I saw a tree as a thing of beauty. Three trees, to be precise. We had just moved from Virginia to Tacoma, Washington, and our new house had three young birch trees in the back yard, planted close to each other. When the wind blew, they looked like three beautiful girls dancing. My heart always lifted when the wind tossed them into a dance.

For 17 years of my adult life, we lived in a house near Greenlake in Seattle with a huge Western red cedar in the front yard. I can’t tell you how many...

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Creative prayer for creation care

Lynne Baab • Thursday March 7 2019

Creative prayer for creation care What’s your favorite place in nature? A beach, the mountains, a lake, a meadow? What’s your favorite aspect of nature? Flowers, reflective water, a specific kind of animal, a tree?

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how we can pray more deeply for God’s creation and how we can feel like we are walking with Jesus when we care for creation. I’ll give you some ideas here, and you can see more of them in the Lenten devotional I co-wrote for our church this year.

Gratitude and praise. Thankfulness prayers are deeply appropriate – and even foundational – when we pray...

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Nature speaks about God: The Bible and nature

Lynne Baab • Friday May 4 2018

Nature speaks about God: The Bible and nature In our Seattle church, children bring flowers on Easter Sunday, mostly daffodils and tulips, with a few hot house flowers like carnations thrown in. The flowers are inserted in a cross specially designed for Easter. At my friend’s church in Oamaru, New Zealand, children also bring flowers on Easter to place on a cross. Because Easter is in the late summer in the Southern Hemisphere, the flowers are mostly roses and dahlias.

Different flowers, different seasons, different locations. Same God, same Easter, same celebration of Jesus’ triumph over death.

The cross speaks of Good Friday, Jesus’ sacrifice for us, and God’s great redemption...

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Nature speaks about God: Patterns in God’s speech

Lynne Baab • Friday April 27 2018

Nature speaks about God: Patterns in God’s speech When we think about the ways God speaks through nature, a key passage is Psalm 119:1-4:

“The heavens are telling the glory of God;    and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech,    and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words;    their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth,    and their words to the end of the world.”

The first verse tells us the content of the words: the glory of God. The remaining verses describe the nature of the speech. It goes spreads to the end of the earth, speaking without words or audible...

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Featured books

The Power of Listening The Power of Listening In this inspiring and practical book, Lynne Baab weaves together wisdom from her years as a pastor, scholar of communication, and daily follower of Jesus, with interviews of people around the world who are committed to listening to God and neighbor. 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 - Local Ministry: A Cord of Three Strands

Lynne Baab • Thursday May 30 2019

By Lynne M. Baab

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...