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Praying about the flow of time: Small actions with big benefits

Lynne Baab • Tuesday November 5 2024

A woman with school-age kids told me that after she says goodbye to her kids each morning when they leave for the school bus, she stands by the door for another minute. She places her hand on the door and prays for each child’s day at school.

A busy children’s ministries director at a church with lots of kids takes a complete day off every Thursday. She calls it her Sabbath, and one of her favorite Sabbath activities is grocery shopping. She lingers in the produce department, looking at the beauty of fruits and vegetables, handling them reverently as she places them...

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Spiritual practices, being/doing, and prayer

Lynne Baab • Tuesday September 5 2023

“I am trying to learn from a Congolese pastor at my church who reminds us, ‘We are human beings, not human doings.’ Yes, there is a rhythm between being and doing. Thank you for the reminder that the being comes first. Inhale, then exhale.”

My friend John wrote that comment on Facebook in response to my post a few weeks ago about the purpose of Christian meditation. Oddly, the same day that I saw his words, I had a conversation with my friend Lisa who said similar words about that particular blog post. Lisa said we have to be careful in approaching...

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First post in a new series: Spiritual practices and prayer

Lynne Baab • Tuesday May 16 2023

Toni, in her forties, fasts frequently. Sometimes she stops eating all food and consumes only water and tea, sometimes she gives up a specific food or category of food, and sometimes she fasts from various forms of media. Her fasts usually last between a day and a week, although sometimes she fasts longer. When she feels led to start a fast, she usually has several prayer requests in mind that she’s hoping to pray for in the time freed up by the fast. She has found that over the course of her fasts, her prayers shift not only to new topics...

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Holy Spirit disruptions: Choosing disruption through spiritual practices

Lynne Baab • Wednesday August 11 2021

I got to preach ten days ago at our church in Seattle. (The whole service is recorded here.) When the senior minister contacted me about a month ago to ask me to preach, he told me the assigned passage for August 1 was Jesus with the children (Luke 18:15-17). Because I’ve been writing blog posts for two months about Holy Spirit disruptions, I immediately thought about the ways Jesus disrupted things in that incident. The passage is clear that he disrupted the disciples’ priorities on who should be welcomed into Jesus’ presence, but he also gave a fresh, radical, and enigmatic perspective...

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