Friendship, Listening, and Empathy: A Prayer GuideDraw Near: A Lenten Devotional Two Hands: Grief and Gratitude in the Christian LifeAdvent DevotionalSabbath Keeping FastingA Renewed SpiritualityNurturing Hope: Christian Pastoral Care in the Twenty-First CenturyThe Power of ListeningJoy Together: Spiritual Practices for Your CongregationPrayers of the New TestamentPrayers of the Old TestamentPersonality Type in CongregationsSabbathA Garden of Living Water: Stories of Self-Discovery and Spiritual GrowthDead Sea: A NovelDeadly Murmurs: A NovelDeath in Dunedin: A NovelBeating Burnout in CongregationsReaching Out in a Networked WorldEmbracing MidlifeFriending

Worship services, spiritual friends, and prayer

Lynne Baab • Tuesday June 20 2023

Worship services, spiritual friends, and prayer

The children have come forward. One of our talented leaders, Lisa, has brought her brother to help with this children’s time. “Did you ever want to be a superhero?” Lisa asks her brother. They banter back and forth about the superheroes they wanted to be and the superpowers they wanted to have.

Lisa asks the kids, “Which superpower would you like to have?” One kid says she would like to fly, and another mentions seeing through walls. Lisa says that Jesus had superpowers, and he used them for the purpose of love. We, too, she says, can use the power we have...

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Draw near: Worshipping God with Desmond Tutu

Lynne Baab • Tuesday September 6 2022

Draw near: Worshipping God with Desmond Tutu

In this short series of four blog posts (within a larger series on prayer), I am honoring Desmond Tutu – South African archbishop, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace prize laureate, who died in December at the age of 90. In the mid-1990s he compiled a collection of prayers from all over Africa called An African Prayer Book. Here’s his introduction to the section of the book on adoration.

“All of us are by nature worshipful. We may worship God to whom we ascribe his due, his worth. This is true worship. Or, we may give a false worship to money, to status,...

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Nature speaks about God: Algae and stars

Lynne Baab • Friday March 16 2018

Nature speaks about God: Algae and stars

The view under the microscope was gorgeous. The slimy mass of green scum I had scooped out of a drainage ditch revealed itself to be long strands with bright green geometric patterns. The color was beautiful. The patterns were beautiful.

I lifted my head from the microscope and stood in that biology lab praising God for creating something so amazing, yet hidden from view most of the time. Who would have thought that algae could speak to me, calling me to praise the God who made it?

I was 20 years old that fall day in the biology lab. I had become a...

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Stories I ponder: The noisy washing machine

Lynne Baab • Thursday August 24 2017

Stories I ponder: The noisy washing machine

About four months ago our washing machine started thumping during the spin cycle. We were going to move and sell our house only two months later, so I wondered if maybe the washing machine could limp along for two months.

One Sunday morning I put a load of laundry in, and it was spinning and thumping as we left for church. The noise was loud enough that I realized we needed to get it fixed as soon as possible. On the way to church I had a bit of a revelation. A couple of weeks earlier I had washed a pair of...

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