Open Secrets: A Spiritual Journey Through a Country Church

Rating:
Summary: A Good Read but More About the Congregation than the Pastor
Review: Richard Lischer's "Open Secrets" is a charming book detailing his three years as a pastor of a small Lutheran church in New Cana, Illinois. This was Lischer's first assignment as a pastor fresh from divinity school (he's now a teacher at Duke's Divinity School) and contains many candid, poignant looks at his experience.

Lischer writes eloquently and honestly about his experiences in divinity school (very little of the book is spent on those experiences, and this is unfortunate because what glimpses we do get are both humorous and insightful) and his time learning how to be an effective pastor at a small church in a rural midwest town. He's honest in his approach as he portrays his feelings of nervousness, disappointment in his assignment, and his occasionally blunt/occasionally amusing opinions of those who make up this congregation. He discusses baptisms, visits to hospitals, talks with confused church members, wooing new potential members, funerals, and the interesting interpersonal relationships that develop between a pastor's family and the congregation.

Overall this is an enjoyable, quick read, but I feel it could have been far more interesting if the author had spent some more time discussing his ministry (and his approach to it) and less time on the personal stories of those in the congregation. Nevertheless, a worthwhile read if not a typical glimpse into beginning life as a pastor in a small midwestern town. Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable
Review: This book is good for a laid back look at a small country church in the "sticks". The reading is easy, entertaining and informative.

Although the author's religious background (Lutheran) is different from mine (Reformed, Christian Reformed Church), I never felt slighted (well, except for the one time he referred to us "Calvinists").

I was a little nervous about the lack of his references to God and God's leading. However, I gave the benefit of the doubt that it was the intent of the author to not throw "religion" in the face of the reader. That has pros and cons. I would have liked to have read more about his personal religious journey with God, not just with other people.

Overall, an enjoyable book, especially for someone like me who is usually more heavily into non-fiction.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting book, but tends to be too opinionated
Review: This was another one of those books that I really couldn't put down. I'm about to enter the seminary and a pastor loaned this book to me because it accurately reflected the life of a minister--especially a minister in a small town. It was fascinating to say the least. One aspect of this book which I found particularly interesing was the bredth of the problems that Rev. Lischer had to deal with: a teenager who is pregnant and fears telling her father because he'll beat her; a seventeen-year-old girl who's having an affair with a thirty-five-year-old man and doesn't understand why people are against it; advice to the man who is considering quitting his job at a factory to concentrate on farming full time; should contemporary songs be introduced to an extremely traditional congregation?; a young, frightened woman who is about to undergo emergency surgeory and her husband. I found myself asking myself what I would say in these situations as I may very well be facing them some day soon.

One piece of advice that Lischer points out once, but occurs more that he realizes is that reflecting the love and compassion that God has for you in your dealing with others tends to work. When Lischer treated people with respect and love, as God would have us treat others, things turned out pretty good for him; when he attempted to impose his own personal political feelings, things tended not to work out as well. Lischer does attempt to impose his own views quite often in the book--from the time he tried to have the American flag removed from the sanctuary of the church to his own biases concerning against "restrictive" tradition in the modern Lutheran church.

In sum, this has been an incredibly helpful book for me as I went about making my decision to enter the ministry. Although this book is well worth the read, I did have problems as an ordained minister tended to write against traditional religion and I was disappointed to find that Lischer wrote little about the domestic ups and downs of pastoral work (he briefly mentions a fight he and his wife had concerning the amount of time spent working versus the amount of time spend with his family). Recommended.