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Open Secrets: A Memoir of Faith and Discovery
Open Secrets is Richard Lischer's story of his early career as a Lutheran minister. Fresh out of divinity school and full of enthusiasm, Lischer found himself assigned to a small conservative church in an economically depressed town in southern Illinois. This was far from what this overly enthusiastic and optimistic young man expected. The town was bleak, poor, and clearly not a step on his path to a brilliant career.
It's an awkward marriage at best, a young man with a Ph.D. in theology, full of ideas and ambitions, determined to improve his parish and bring them into the twenty-first century, and a community that is "as tightly sealed as a jar of home-canned pickles." In their own way, they welcome him and his family, even though they think he's "got bigger fish to fry." Thus begins Richard Lischer's first year as a pastor: bringing communion to the sick (but forgetting to bring the wafers); marrying two unlikely couples--a pregnant teenager and her boyfriend, and two people who can't stop fighting.
Often he doesn't understand his congregation, and sometimes they don't understand him; for instance, why does his wife hire a baby-sitter and instead of leaving, put on her bathing suit, grab a stack of novels, and hide from the kids? Or why can't Pastor Lischer see how important it is for a woman with little money to buy an elaborate coffin to bury her husband in?
There are also the moments of grace, when pastor and parishioner unite for a common goal: when he asks for prayers for his infant son, and can feel everyone in the congregation ministering to him; when old hurts are put aside to help a desperate young woman finish college and raise her baby; or when he helps save a woman from dying of a drug overdose.
In Open Secrets Lischer tells not only his own story but also the story of New Cana and all of its inhabitants--lovable, deeply flawed, imperfect people that stick together. With his sharp eye and keen wit, Lischer perfectly captures the comedy of small town life with all of its feuds, rumors, scandals, and friendships. In the end he learns to appreciate not only the life New Cana has to offer, but also the people who have accepted him, at last, as part of themselves.
From the Hardcover edition.
It's an awkward marriage at best, a young man with a Ph.D. in theology, full of ideas and ambitions, determined to improve his parish and bring them into the twenty-first century, and a community that is "as tightly sealed as a jar of home-canned pickles." In their own way, they welcome him and his family, even though they think he's "got bigger fish to fry." Thus begins Richard Lischer's first year as a pastor: bringing communion to the sick (but forgetting to bring the wafers); marrying two unlikely couples--a pregnant teenager and her boyfriend, and two people who can't stop fighting.
Often he doesn't understand his congregation, and sometimes they don't understand him; for instance, why does his wife hire a baby-sitter and instead of leaving, put on her bathing suit, grab a stack of novels, and hide from the kids? Or why can't Pastor Lischer see how important it is for a woman with little money to buy an elaborate coffin to bury her husband in?
There are also the moments of grace, when pastor and parishioner unite for a common goal: when he asks for prayers for his infant son, and can feel everyone in the congregation ministering to him; when old hurts are put aside to help a desperate young woman finish college and raise her baby; or when he helps save a woman from dying of a drug overdose.
In Open Secrets Lischer tells not only his own story but also the story of New Cana and all of its inhabitants--lovable, deeply flawed, imperfect people that stick together. With his sharp eye and keen wit, Lischer perfectly captures the comedy of small town life with all of its feuds, rumors, scandals, and friendships. In the end he learns to appreciate not only the life New Cana has to offer, but also the people who have accepted him, at last, as part of themselves.
From the Hardcover edition.
256 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2001
27 people are currently reading
328 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews
February 17, 2023
Totally enjoyed this memoir—it was slow out of the gate for the first few chapters, but those chapters did include some very interesting and even humorous historical points. This is a great look from a pastoral perspective. By the time I reached the end, I wished there was more!
April 24, 2012
This book may be one of a kind. It's a memoir of a young parish minister accepting his first call to a Lutheran church in rural Illinois, and although there's a reference to the classic "Diary of a Country Priest" at the outset, any comparison with Bernanos' dying, saint-like character ends there on page one. Lischer, schooled in what seems to have been the excessively conservative Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church, finds his 1960s liberal sensibilities set on a collision course with the deeply rooted religious and cultural traditions of his farming congregants. If there's anything classic about this, it's his role as a fish out of water.
This may sound like grounds for some modestly Lutheran hilarity along the lines of Garrison Keillor, but Lischer has other things in mind. In chapter after chapter, he reveals how he discovers the bonds of community that have held his church families together for generations, and in his three years there, while he never really finds himself at home with them, they help him learn a great deal about what the parish ministry really means - a kind of mutual support that he had not been prepared for in his years at the seminary.
Lischer has a wonderful gift as a writer. He takes his time to find the right words, the right metaphor to bring his subject to life, and like a well-crafted sermon, they illuminate the everyday world, if only briefly, with an other-worldly light. When he and his family leave at the end of his tenure, there is a sadness of parting - and nostalgia for a time gone by - that accompanies the reader long after the last page has been turned.
This may sound like grounds for some modestly Lutheran hilarity along the lines of Garrison Keillor, but Lischer has other things in mind. In chapter after chapter, he reveals how he discovers the bonds of community that have held his church families together for generations, and in his three years there, while he never really finds himself at home with them, they help him learn a great deal about what the parish ministry really means - a kind of mutual support that he had not been prepared for in his years at the seminary.
Lischer has a wonderful gift as a writer. He takes his time to find the right words, the right metaphor to bring his subject to life, and like a well-crafted sermon, they illuminate the everyday world, if only briefly, with an other-worldly light. When he and his family leave at the end of his tenure, there is a sadness of parting - and nostalgia for a time gone by - that accompanies the reader long after the last page has been turned.
June 12, 2017
Memoir and biography are such tricky genres. To be able to tell an effective story while still effectively communicating the "Big Story" - lessons learned, pains earned - of a person's life takes narrative artistry, for one, and poetic vision, for another. It is not simply enough, for instance, to recall a direct diegesis of the subject's life-events - else it becomes journalism - nor to provide thorough exegesis of every moment - else it becomes banal sentimentalism or (worse yet!) propaganda. Rather, one must do the precise same narrative art as a novelist, weaving words together for emotional and aesthetic effect, with the vision of a poet, observing in the mundane the elements of the unique, the powerful, the spiritual, even.
Richard Lischer, of course, enters into memoir with one major strength on his side: he is a Lutheran, and, thus, he is Sacramental, and there is something special about the kind of person who looks a bread and wine or water and identifies it as something special when it is mixed with the Word, as Martin Luther would say. Not all Sacramental Christians (e.g. Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Orthodox, etc.) become poetic because of their views on the Sacrament, but some do, and when they do, the whole world is transformed in the light of the notion that God manifests His Grace in visible signs combining the mundanity of the world with the supernatural power of the Word.
Open Secrets is a unique little delight of a book. For me, it is a story about Home, even though for Lischer it is one about being "far-from" Home, so to speak. The memoir follows his first pastoral appointment at a small Lutheran congregation in "New Cana," IL. (Based on Lischer's directions and descriptions - and a little help from The Alton Telegraph - my wife and I were able to determine its location with precision; the town is about thirty minutes from where I grew up.) Lischer, a progressive intellectual who, at one juncture, teaches at an "illegal seminary" for ordaining women, finds himself in the tradition-entrenched world of rural Illinois, amidst farmers and working-class folks whose largest theological crises are not on how to read the Book of I Timothy, but, instead, in which direction to increase the cemetery plot or how to refinish the wooden floor of the church.
There's a sense of pastoral honesty in the work, an intimate recollection of failures and "successes" (there were times in which Lischer would do or say something, and my wife and I would gasp and say "He did what?!"; of course, being a pastor in the 70's had some fundamental differences from our current day and age), and a large dose of the humility necessary to learn how to care for people who are far different from you. In that sense, Lischer is, in every possible way, a pastor for us in our day and age of dichotomized communities, and the story he has to tell is one familiar to anyone who has done some amount of missionary work - of building trust with an unknown community, learning their social and cultural standards and values, and developing a liturgy that is legitimately "theirs."
Of course, unlike all the copious texts of missiology coming from today's theologians and thought-leaders, Lischer's missional experience is largely one of humiliating (re: humbling) disaster. My personal favorite (re: the one I found most distressing) was when Lischer stands up against an avaricious funeral director, only to have his own cemetery committee turn on him.
But this is better medicine for the modern pastor (and for the modern parishioner) than page-upon-page of "how-to" manuals that are crafted (so it would seem) for the precise purpose of avoiding humiliation. Is it any surprise, given such resources available, that we see "big pastors" and "big churches" (and even "small pastors" and "small churches") implode due to the ever-mounting pressure of avoiding humiliation? Lischer, instead, is baptized into humiliation, thrown into a world outside of his control, and confronted by a stubborn people who may well have more to teach their pastor than he has to teach them.
I cannot express how vital I think a book like Open Secrets is for the modern Church, especially in the West. Lischer's wisdom (and the sources of his wisdom) are a grace and a blessing, and his frank pastoral experiences reveal a whole network of the "work of the pastor" that are far more Christ-like than our typical evangelical understandings (i.e. "pastor as teacher-preacher"). He also makes for a good companion with Marilynne Robinson's fictional John Ames in Gilead; both intellectual pastors with high theological aspirations, but Lischer strives to be more a pastor while Ames strives to be more a theologian. It is needless to say that the memoir account is more realistic.
All future pastors ought to read Open Secrets, despite its poorly-designed cover (downstate Illinois doesn't look like that AT ALL) and strange choice in title, because it is one of the few honest written works about pastoral ministry. Put simply, it needs to be required reading for every M.Div. program in the country; this is far more important than yet another systematic theology.
Richard Lischer, of course, enters into memoir with one major strength on his side: he is a Lutheran, and, thus, he is Sacramental, and there is something special about the kind of person who looks a bread and wine or water and identifies it as something special when it is mixed with the Word, as Martin Luther would say. Not all Sacramental Christians (e.g. Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Orthodox, etc.) become poetic because of their views on the Sacrament, but some do, and when they do, the whole world is transformed in the light of the notion that God manifests His Grace in visible signs combining the mundanity of the world with the supernatural power of the Word.
Open Secrets is a unique little delight of a book. For me, it is a story about Home, even though for Lischer it is one about being "far-from" Home, so to speak. The memoir follows his first pastoral appointment at a small Lutheran congregation in "New Cana," IL. (Based on Lischer's directions and descriptions - and a little help from The Alton Telegraph - my wife and I were able to determine its location with precision; the town is about thirty minutes from where I grew up.) Lischer, a progressive intellectual who, at one juncture, teaches at an "illegal seminary" for ordaining women, finds himself in the tradition-entrenched world of rural Illinois, amidst farmers and working-class folks whose largest theological crises are not on how to read the Book of I Timothy, but, instead, in which direction to increase the cemetery plot or how to refinish the wooden floor of the church.
There's a sense of pastoral honesty in the work, an intimate recollection of failures and "successes" (there were times in which Lischer would do or say something, and my wife and I would gasp and say "He did what?!"; of course, being a pastor in the 70's had some fundamental differences from our current day and age), and a large dose of the humility necessary to learn how to care for people who are far different from you. In that sense, Lischer is, in every possible way, a pastor for us in our day and age of dichotomized communities, and the story he has to tell is one familiar to anyone who has done some amount of missionary work - of building trust with an unknown community, learning their social and cultural standards and values, and developing a liturgy that is legitimately "theirs."
Of course, unlike all the copious texts of missiology coming from today's theologians and thought-leaders, Lischer's missional experience is largely one of humiliating (re: humbling) disaster. My personal favorite (re: the one I found most distressing) was when Lischer stands up against an avaricious funeral director, only to have his own cemetery committee turn on him.
But this is better medicine for the modern pastor (and for the modern parishioner) than page-upon-page of "how-to" manuals that are crafted (so it would seem) for the precise purpose of avoiding humiliation. Is it any surprise, given such resources available, that we see "big pastors" and "big churches" (and even "small pastors" and "small churches") implode due to the ever-mounting pressure of avoiding humiliation? Lischer, instead, is baptized into humiliation, thrown into a world outside of his control, and confronted by a stubborn people who may well have more to teach their pastor than he has to teach them.
I cannot express how vital I think a book like Open Secrets is for the modern Church, especially in the West. Lischer's wisdom (and the sources of his wisdom) are a grace and a blessing, and his frank pastoral experiences reveal a whole network of the "work of the pastor" that are far more Christ-like than our typical evangelical understandings (i.e. "pastor as teacher-preacher"). He also makes for a good companion with Marilynne Robinson's fictional John Ames in Gilead; both intellectual pastors with high theological aspirations, but Lischer strives to be more a pastor while Ames strives to be more a theologian. It is needless to say that the memoir account is more realistic.
All future pastors ought to read Open Secrets, despite its poorly-designed cover (downstate Illinois doesn't look like that AT ALL) and strange choice in title, because it is one of the few honest written works about pastoral ministry. Put simply, it needs to be required reading for every M.Div. program in the country; this is far more important than yet another systematic theology.
January 13, 2025
I loved this book. It was a wonderful picture into the ordinary life of a pastor and his congregation, exploring God's grace and provision amidst the challenges and joys of all areas of life. Though I'm partial to the book, being from Illinois and spending some time living close to where the book takes place, I think this could be an enlightening read for all pastors, as well as parishioners who may see themselves in some of the individuals Lischer describes from his church.
January 1, 2018
When gossip serves the gospel, it exhibits historical, moral, and pastoral dimensions. It works like this: Let's say the teenage baby-sitter comes home from the parsonage where she has been minding Pastor and Mrs. Lischer's two kids, and reports to her grandmother that Mrs. Lischer does not really leave the property when she hires a baby-sitter. What she does is she puts on a bathing suit, takes a lawn chair and a stack of books out behind the garage facing the cemetery, and hides from the kids for hours on end while she reads books. Not only that, her poor daughter Sarah plays a game she calls Dissertation in which she puts her dolls down for a nap and then she pretends to read books. (97)Wonderfully thoughtful memoir of Lischer's first days as a minister. New Cana was the opposite of the community Lischer hoped for: he wanted a big church, a vibrant one, somewhere he could make his name as a minister. New Cana, by contrast, was small and insular, a fading congregation, the kind of place where new ministers cut their teeth before leaving for greener pastures.
Lischer wrote this long after his time in New Cana, and the book is better for it: he'd had a lot of time to reflect, and also to mature. He had the confidence and the emotional security (for lack of a better term) to examine not only the situations he encountered but also how he was and wasn't prepared to deal with them.
The quotation I pulled above really has very little to do with this review; if anything, it's only an example of how Lischer and her family felt like misfits in this community where he was meant to provide guidance. Mostly, though, I just loved the humour in it. The book is full of that sort of humour, and of stories that illustrate his points well.
Like those who came before him, Lischer left New Cana when his contract was up: it wasn't a match made in heaven, and his yearnings for somewhere bigger (and his more general ambition) hadn't abated. But there's ambivalence in Lischer's telling of that decision: he was yet another person who chose to leave, and yet he could not bring himself to stay, and perhaps he was not the right person to stay anyway. Lots of things to ponder.
August 20, 2017
Beautiful, precious, and moving - this might have just become my favourite memoir. Richard Lischer recounts his near three-year tenure in a rural conservative Lutheran church in the early-mid 1970s as a young, progressively-minded pastor fresh out of school with a PhD. Lischer draws out astonishing and poignant glimpses of grace in the lives of his parishioners who are beset with all manner of personal problems and flaws but who are tightly-knit and committed to one another. Highly recommended.
April 7, 2010
Powerful book about a new pastor's first church. Insightful reflections on the struggles, joys, and adventures of a first church as a pastor out of seminary. Highly recommended for pastors or anyone who wants a little window into the life of a pastor.
May 29, 2019
Not my normal reading material (which seems to be my mantra of late), but an interesting choice recommended by my pastor.
Rural Illinois, minuscule community, old-school farmers with little education but a whole lotta smarts about how things are done. And one young pastor who's greener than a fresh-budded ear of corn. Open Secrets is the story of his time in New Cana, his first parish as a newly minted Lutheran minister in the late 1960s and early 70s.
Most often a pastor is called to a parish where he can do much teaching and other good. Just as often, however, he is called to a parish where he is the one learning. There's always give and take, but in a first parish, a minister learns exactly how much he did not learn in seminary, and how much he did learn that doesn't quite work in the real world.
Delivered in a slightly self-deprecating and matter-of-fact manner, Rev. Fischer's lessons are somewhat uncomfortable and occasionally even cringe-worthy to read, but entertaining and fascinating to me as a child of 1970s and 80s suburbia.
My only complaint is that a few of the stories left me wanting more detail. A couple of them seemed anticlimactic and sort of incomplete, but he just chugged right on to the next tale with a very rural-esque sense of "well, there it is."
So, with my review. Well, there it is.
Rural Illinois, minuscule community, old-school farmers with little education but a whole lotta smarts about how things are done. And one young pastor who's greener than a fresh-budded ear of corn. Open Secrets is the story of his time in New Cana, his first parish as a newly minted Lutheran minister in the late 1960s and early 70s.
Most often a pastor is called to a parish where he can do much teaching and other good. Just as often, however, he is called to a parish where he is the one learning. There's always give and take, but in a first parish, a minister learns exactly how much he did not learn in seminary, and how much he did learn that doesn't quite work in the real world.
Delivered in a slightly self-deprecating and matter-of-fact manner, Rev. Fischer's lessons are somewhat uncomfortable and occasionally even cringe-worthy to read, but entertaining and fascinating to me as a child of 1970s and 80s suburbia.
My only complaint is that a few of the stories left me wanting more detail. A couple of them seemed anticlimactic and sort of incomplete, but he just chugged right on to the next tale with a very rural-esque sense of "well, there it is."
So, with my review. Well, there it is.
February 21, 2020
I refuse to take stars away if I disagree with an author. The writing was simply terrific. He has immense respect for word and sacrament ministry and is able to put it into words eloquently. He has lived an examined life, and I’m blessed to have heard about it.
However, sort of like reading “A Walk in the Woods” by Bryson, one can’t help but read the narrator (the author) as arrogant. You can assume he shattered his illusions as to what rural small town life would be like and what actual ministry with real people would be like, but he’s not quick to hide how he most likely still views these people. I was shocked and honestly hurt to read towards the very end that he went and taught a class at SeminEx without telling or asking the president of his congregation about it! Also, if he could shatter his illusions about small town life and getting out of his ivory tower to do ministry, then why could he never shatter his illusions about his Denominational Synod? (LCMS)
In the end, however, while the book was often depressing, I am better for having read it and would recommend it to anyone, especially clergy and clergy in training.
However, sort of like reading “A Walk in the Woods” by Bryson, one can’t help but read the narrator (the author) as arrogant. You can assume he shattered his illusions as to what rural small town life would be like and what actual ministry with real people would be like, but he’s not quick to hide how he most likely still views these people. I was shocked and honestly hurt to read towards the very end that he went and taught a class at SeminEx without telling or asking the president of his congregation about it! Also, if he could shatter his illusions about small town life and getting out of his ivory tower to do ministry, then why could he never shatter his illusions about his Denominational Synod? (LCMS)
In the end, however, while the book was often depressing, I am better for having read it and would recommend it to anyone, especially clergy and clergy in training.
February 15, 2024
This is a wonderful book. I laughed and cried as I read his description of his first pastoral ministry as I remembered my own. His was real ministry to real people who, even as he learned on the job, helped him become a "real pastor." The book enabled me to recall with fondness and gladness that small group of faithful and patient people who taught me more about how to do ministry than did my years in seminary. I will be forever grateful for them. Some readers will have theological differences with the author but that should not allow them to miss the wonderful description of the glory of the church as it is and not as we might wish it would be. This would be an excellent book to give to a young man about to start in pastoral ministry. Unfortunately, he will probably not be able to appreciate it until he, in his turn, has learned that the Lord uses the church to form the pastor just as he uses the pastor to form the church.
June 28, 2024
Richard Lischer touched my heart in this beautiful memoir of his three years spent serving his first pastorate of New Cana, IL. The last chapter is worth the entire book. As he gets ready to leave New Cana, he reflects upon his time there: “But now, as I look out upon this cloud of upturned faces, each representing others already turned to the light, I was embraced by a wholeness I never before experienced. It seemed to me that I was looking at the church as God sees it, not as a series of individual quirks and opinions, but as a single heart of love and sorrow. The only thing that made us different from any other kinship group or society was the mysterious presence of Jesus in the community… The ordinary world really is capable of hosting the infinite Being.”
As someone who has lived and served my own New Cana, this book feels like Home.
As someone who has lived and served my own New Cana, this book feels like Home.
January 1, 2018
This memoir of a pastor’s first years serving a parish was so moving. As someone who is currently in seminary this book was an honest and accurate picture of the joys, struggles, and moments of life in the parish. Reading this book gave me excitement, hope, and some caution for what it looks like to walk the journey of faith with people, not only in the parish, but also in the wider community!
I would highly recommend this book for anyone (clergy, parishioner, or those not involved in a faith community at all). It was a quick read because I could not put it down and wanted to know what was going to happen next!
I would highly recommend this book for anyone (clergy, parishioner, or those not involved in a faith community at all). It was a quick read because I could not put it down and wanted to know what was going to happen next!
November 24, 2024
This memoir was poetically written, and a fascinating picture of the joys and challenges of Lutheran pastor’s first call in a small, simple Midwest farming community through the early to mid-20th century.
However, I did not generally like the book because I read this for a Lutheran history seminary class. I am not sure if we need more insights into the white male experience. In a denomination that is predominantly white, there are more important issues at hand than looking back to what has been. Additionally, Lischer’s self-proclaimed arrogance is interwoven with self-identified shortcomings in an odd way that both teaches and leaves a number of unanswered questions.
However, I did not generally like the book because I read this for a Lutheran history seminary class. I am not sure if we need more insights into the white male experience. In a denomination that is predominantly white, there are more important issues at hand than looking back to what has been. Additionally, Lischer’s self-proclaimed arrogance is interwoven with self-identified shortcomings in an odd way that both teaches and leaves a number of unanswered questions.
July 19, 2019
A memoir on rural ministry. I appreciated Lischer's open and honest voice about himself and the community of faith he served. As a rural pastor his reflection challenged me to also consider my blind-spots and assumptions regarding the community I serve and myself.
Lischer's voice and narrative was engaging and accessible and when he leaned into his theological wrestings he brought his readers along balancing meaning and challenge. This book is certainly intended for a specific audience and if the premise appeals to you in any way I believe it is well worth your time.
Lischer's voice and narrative was engaging and accessible and when he leaned into his theological wrestings he brought his readers along balancing meaning and challenge. This book is certainly intended for a specific audience and if the premise appeals to you in any way I believe it is well worth your time.
January 26, 2021
A book chronicling three years in a new Lutheran pastor's life as he starts his ministry in a country church. I actually thought the book covered a much longer time period from the way he tells the stories, but I think that was because of the richness with which he describes his stories. If you happen to be starting pastoral ministry in a rural setting, this is probably a good thing for you to read. Otherwise it's a good book of stories of about church life from a pastor's perspective in a rural area.
June 3, 2025
I want to rate this higher but I don't think I can give it a 4. I struggled reading all the things "wrong" with his congregation. It made me feel like he was very "gossipy". But the last few chapters totally changed my opinion of the book. I'm so glad I didn't give up on it. It was also ironic that by the end of the book I realized I was just as judgemental as I thought the author was. It was a very fruitful little sting. Thank you for pointing out my own sinful nature.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 20, 2017
This book is an autobiographical tale of a bright young seminarian who leaves school ready to change the world and winds up being assigned to pastor a tiny country church in the middle of nowhere. Lischer honestly describes his struggles with his own pride, unmet expectations and failures as he pastors his first church. He goes into this small town thinking he has so much to offer to them when in reality these simple country folk are the ones who truly show him what it means to follow Jesus.
This book really struck a chord with me as a current seminarian headed towards pastoral ministry. I've often struggled with my own pride and no that I also have many unrealistic expectations about what I hope my future ministry will be. But as Lischer points out in his book, you don't have to be a mega-church pastor or New York Times Bestselling author in order to have a meaningful ministry. Lischer portrays the beauty and significance of ministering to others, no matter where that happens to be.
This book really struck a chord with me as a current seminarian headed towards pastoral ministry. I've often struggled with my own pride and no that I also have many unrealistic expectations about what I hope my future ministry will be. But as Lischer points out in his book, you don't have to be a mega-church pastor or New York Times Bestselling author in order to have a meaningful ministry. Lischer portrays the beauty and significance of ministering to others, no matter where that happens to be.
January 15, 2021
All aspiring ministers (of the pastoral persuasion or not) should read this book. Lischer reflects on his triumphs and failures, his questions and certainties, during his first call at a rural church that he didn't want... and often didn't seem to want him either.
Ministry is messy, and Lischer writes about the messiness with compassion for his past self and wisdom gained.
Ministry is messy, and Lischer writes about the messiness with compassion for his past self and wisdom gained.
March 16, 2021
This is a very well written memoir. The author alludes to several works of classic literature, so he is well read. It shows in his writing style. He writes about his experience as a young pastor in a conservative church in the early 1970s. The experiences and people are at times interesting, insightful, and entertaining; but the narrative drags in places.
November 15, 2016
This book is a must read for anyone who has ever been a young, inexperienced pastor in a small church. It is pure gold. Even though my own context was much different than Richard Lischer's, I could relate to so many of the stories he told.
November 30, 2018
A compelling account of a seminary-educated cleric in his first job as a small-town pastor and the mistakes he made. Should be required reading for seminarians who haven't lived in rural settings but likely to receive calls there.
January 19, 2019
Wonderful recounting of Lischer's first years in the ministry in a small country church. His writing is full of marvelous descriptions, funny stories, compassionate ministry, and the joys and regrets of his time in rural Illinois.
December 18, 2019
A beautifully told tale of ministry in rural America. Some truly funny and heart rending stories. A great example of a pastoral heart to love and learn. Written honestly and openly. A great read for all pastors.
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June 22, 2022It was okay; written in a less engaging/passive style & more of an informational/preaching style. I can’t quite identify why it was only “okay” for me; maybe a younger pastoral family can better identify with building church community early in one’s ministry.
July 19, 2022
This title was required reading for a clergy group I participated in. While dated and of another denomination, it provided opportunities for reflection on the stumblings into the early years of ministry.
June 13, 2017
A churchy/theological memoir that reads like a novel. This is far lovelier than I was expecting.
January 21, 2018
Amazing book!
As I myself am stepping into a small church, I could relate to much in this book. His honesty was refreshing, and his profound reflection on life is inspiring.
As I myself am stepping into a small church, I could relate to much in this book. His honesty was refreshing, and his profound reflection on life is inspiring.
October 10, 2020
The best book about ministry I’ve ever read. I cried.
March 10, 2021
I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Touching and funny as he looks at his actions and reactions as a young pastor.
September 14, 2022
Good narrative and good insights
Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews