This is one book that becomes a tradition. When the anniversary of the first time you read it comes around, you'll find yourself going to the bookcase, digging it out, and reading it again. It will give you a kind of sad, joyful feeling everytime. The book also gives you different perspective on the 1958 Ford Edsel. As for my daughter and I we bought a 1958 metal cast model of a 1958 Edsel convertible. Everytime we see it sitting on the shelf that joyful sad feeling sweeps through our hearts again. If you ever wondered what it was like being a preachers kid, "St. Ben" will dispell all the myths. So be prepared to make it a tradition the first time you read it.

I am in the middle of reading this book right now, but I have already decided that it is one of my favorites. It has already created a great variety of emotions for me, and I am not even at the climax yet!!! Reading this book is making me think about not only myself, but about the people around me. I picked it up because reading the back reminded me of my godbrother, whose name happens to be Ben. But now, I can't put it down!!!

This is about a young boy named Ben who has differant feelings about things. He meets a friend who is the only one who knows how he feels. But there is a secret that only ben and his parents know. Will Bens frind beable to face the shocking news about his friend? To find out read it!!

The premise of John Fischer's book, WHAT ON EARTH ARE WE DOING? is that the Church has abandoned the world and instead of being the salt and light of the Earth as Jesus called us to be, we have created our own little sub-culture, our own little ghetto of safety that the world totally ignores.

The Christian sub-culture is not necessarily a bad thing. We need fellowship with other believers, we need music that glorifies God, we need books written from a Christian perspective. However, we have created these things at the expense of being mediocre and with an attitude of self-righteousness. The world ignores the little ghetto we have created for ourselves because it has nothing to offer them except hypocrisy, condemnation, and mediocrity.

We as the Church have not forgotten we are at war, but we have mixed up who we are at war with. For the last thirty years, Christians have been fighting against the people of the world when those are the very individuals we are fighting to save. We are not at war with the lost, we are at war with the dark forces of the spiritual realm. We have forgotten this and instead of trying to help illuminate the world with the Gospel, we have condemned it with our own self-righteousness.

These are all points the Fischer raises and discusses in WHAT ON EARTH ARE WE DOING?. The book is a great read for every Christian and will probably prove to be an eye opener.

This is the most powerful work that I have read since Philip Yancey's What's So Amazing About Grace. It spoke volumes of truth to me. Fischer believes that the evangelical community in America has, in the past 25 years or so, developed what can only be described as a Christian sub-culture; one which has had more negative than positive effects. He states that we're raised to believe that if we only act differently from the world then the world will see us and think "man, I wanna be like you." But that hasn't really happened. Instead, in large part to the WAY we act differently, the world views us and sees hypocracy, piousness, and a lack of love. They're not seeing Jesus. Just look at the way Christians are portrayed by the media: intolerant, not full of love. Also, instead of being salt and light to the world, we are in effect no longer even in the world. We have retreated in an effort to avoid being touched by the sinfulness that we see.

Fischer believes that our little sub-culture has totally failed. The church is called to love our neighbors, which requires actually engaging them. The church is not called to impose our morality upon someone who doesn't believe as we do. We are not here to spread Christian conservative principles throughout America. We're here to spread the Gospel of Jesus to people who are without it and lost.

One of the problems is that we so often view others as the enemy. Conservatives look at liberals and think "enemy." Fundamentalists look at homosexuals and pro-choice activists as "the enemy." Fischer says that is dead wrong. The world (the unsaved) is not our enemy. The world is LOST. When we quit looking at the world as something we must struggle and fight against and begin looking at the world through the eyes of Christ and see them as lost, that totally changes our approach. When our attitude changes, we no longer try to set the sinner straight or fix their moral problems. Instead, we try to bring her/him home safely. We don't focus on their sinfulness, we focus on their need for a savior.

Our entire approach must change. To do so, we need to reach the world where it's at. We need to examine their culture: the things that are important to them and the things they spend their time doing. By reaching out to the world with our walls of judgement breeched, and doing it in love, by realizing that none of us are perfect and that world is full of sinners, and I am the worst of them (as Paul himself readily admited), our efforts to reach these people will take on a totally new face and effectiveness. Buy this book. Search for it, if you have to (you may have to order it). It's a great read -- fast paced, due to his writing style -- and you'll finish it quickly. The message here is challenging, no-holds-barred, and urgent; it must be heard and applied. Five Stars.

Fischer has always been a capable writer both of fiction and non-fiction, but "What On Earth Are We Doing" is his tour de force, a brilliant analysis of what is wrong in Christendom. Fischer shines a spotlight on all of the silly arguments that have kept committed Christians from impacting the wider world an culture.

This book deserves a wider audience than it has received so far. Tell a friend!

I would put this in the same category as Roaring Lambs, What's so Amazing about Grace, and The Ragamuffin Gospel. John will make you evaluate how you spend your money, your time and your energies.

John Fischer addresses with clarity, precision, and brutal honesty the issues which have been niggling at the corners of my own Christian walk for many years. He calls into question and accountability the current "exclusionist, safe, non-threatening Christian subculture" of which the vast majority of Christians partake to an extreme level. Faith on trial for being fearful? You bet...and found, in this writing, GUILTY AS CHARGED!

Hats off to Mr. Fischer for having the gumption to buck the current "Christian establishment"! I have often wondered where Christians get off thinking that just because a song is labeled "Christian" that it makes it any better than a song "outside" the Christian genre.

As one who cringes at "fish" displayed on business cards or scripture on checks, it is good to know I am not only not alone, but that there is a whole Christian Underground out there that believes Christianity is more than "witnessing"....Christians who aren't afraid to live their lives with the idea that living one's life as a Christian has more to do with our relationship with God, integrity, honesty, compassion, caring, and loving and respecting other people ...that is...HOW WE LIVE OUR LIVES...than it does looking down our noses at someone else just because they aren't Christian...

THANK YOU MR. FISCHER!

In Fearless Faith, John Fischer delivers another commentary on the ever expanding gap between the 'world' at large and the Christian sub-culture. The Christian community has now safely protected itself from the contamination of the world, and it seems, need not venture out. John seems to beg the question, with a Christian version of everything, why go out into "the world".

I greatly appreciate how John takes us outside the sterile bubble of our protected faith into a world that is increasingly becoming foreign to us. This book is frank and honest with real life examples (interviews of sort) of Christians who are struggling to make a difference in the world but are fearful of being exposed that they are even rubbing shoulders with the world at all. These are Christians who listen to popular music, drink beer with non-Christians, watch current films,are interested in politics, and engage in business. These are Christians who have real life relationships with real life people, in the real world.

Today, too many Christians venture out of their protected enviornemnt and "into the world" only to evangelize. And then, as John so appropriately uses the descriptive analogy from the film, "The Big Kahuna", the evangelism becomes more like recruiting or selling than transforming a life by grappling with a person's real life issues "in the world".

Fearless Faith is a challange to exercise your faith-muscles not by gritting your teeth or powering your way through, but by being salt and light "in the world". It can be fearless precisely because Jesus prayed to the Father not to take us out of the world, but to protect us "in" it.

Fearless Faith is a must read and will provide you with a faith-full workout!

I bought this book almost 10 years ago when I heard John speak at a conference (he even signed it!). But I just recently picked it up again and...wow...how sobering and refreshing. John, a master of story and induction, will force and inspire you to confront the grey areas of the faith, dark areas of the heart, and the sometimes scary vastness of our all-pervasive God. It's a creative, insightful & witty book full of short vignettes that will, build a solid Christian worldview in you if you're not careful! You'll thank John for writing it...

This book really caught my attention, while scanning the library shelves in search for info on the "Shroud of Turin" {Jesus's burial cloth} I guess it was the Title of the book that caught my eye. The chapter I read and copied for friends, was the "Onward Christian Soldiers" chapter. It states that Christians or churches should not resort to hate tatics or to criticise each other or denominations. Christ showed us his love, and we should strive to be like him.

Good Book - Read It. Thanks!

A hard look at the traditional, and often not-Biblically based, cultural practices of the church. However, this book is much more than a nit-pickers fest as Fischer leads the reader into seeking a deeper relationship with Christ by weeding through unbiblical traditions. Also check out "Real Christians Don't Dance"

This is an excellent book with an extremely insightful and fascinating chapter written by Mark I. Gruhin. He is a very skilled writer and lawyer, and I look forward to his future writings.

Being a lawyer in NYC, I was very impressed with some Inside the Minds: Interne Lawyers. Although it is impossible to cover every Internet related topic, the book does a good job at covering some very interesting topics. In addition, the individuals portrayed in the book represent a good cross sampling of different talents related to Internet law. I particularly enjoyed the interview with Mark Fischer at Palmer & Dodge. If you are a woman, make sure to also check out Inside the Minds: Leading Women.

Tom Fischer, et al, do a nice job explaining the basics design patterns with the newly object-oriented Visual Basic (VB.NET): which pattern is used against what type of problem. This book is great for people migrating from VB6 who have never dealt with objects and it's a good introduction to the topic.

The book covers most of the original Gang of Four (GoF) models in a very readable, pragmatic way.

For those of you that hears about Design Patterns but don't know C/C++ and are having issues finding good ressources to adapt Design Patterns in the VB area, this is the book for you.

Rather than attempting to compete with 'Design Patterns : elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software', from Addison-Wesley, they extend it so that VB developers can learn how to understand design Patterns and apply them inside our applications.

The book covers the following common patterns :
Singleton, Abstract Factory, Factory, Adapter, Facade, Bridge, Composite, Decorator, Proxy, Observer, State, Strategy,Template.

A hard look at the traditional, and often not-Biblically based, cultural practices of the church. However, this book is much more than a nit-pickers fest as Fischer leads the reader into seeking a deeper relationship with Christ by weeding through unbiblical traditions. Also check out "True Believers Don't Ask Why"

First of all, do not be mislead by the title. On the book cover, the word "don't" is crossed out in red ink, and an exclamation point is added after the word "dance". This book is written by John Fischer, veteran songwriter of Christian Music long before anyone was ever talking about something called "Contemporary Christian Music". (Chances are if you've been to a church retreat or camp, you may well have sung one of his around the campfire.) He is also a popular speaker and talented writer of fiction and non-fiction (a longtime columnist for "CCM" magazine). He writes as one who has grown up in within the Evangelical Christian sub-culture and has had to sort out just what in his life was really his and truly Christian, and what is simply traditions handed down to him. In the book, he likens the process to peeling the skin off an orange; he has to sort out the juicy part from the white stuff surrounding it, deciding what to keep and what to discard. _Real Christians Don't Dance_ is a collection of personal essays and reflections centered more or less on the theme of sorting out what in the Christian life is real. As one who has been through the same sorting out process, I heartily recommend this book. A quote might be illustrative here: "Which is easier to follow: 'real Christians don't envy' or 'real Christians don't dance'? Which one gets noticed first: 'real Christians don't lust' or 'real Christians don't smoke'? Which is harder to comply with: 'real Christians love their enemies' or 'real Christians go to church on Sundays?'" (page 16). I've in particular directed many people to this book because of the essay "Cutting In" (pp. 116-117). John Fischer is one of only a few authors I've ever encountered who is willing to talk about the pain that a _father_ feels over the miscarriage of his unborn son or daughter. Thanks, John; it helped. His personal reflections are continued in _True Believers Don't Ask Why_ and _Making Real What I Already Believe_. Many of these themes also appear in his novel _Saint Ben_.

I borrowed this book from my school's library. And it is awesome. John Fischer takes a few lines from a hymn and writes a devotional on it. One for each day of the year. If you love hymns, like I do, this book is worth, at least reading. It's encouraging, and Fischer brings up topics, that I, at least, have never thought about in connection with the hymn for the day. Anyways, if you enjoy hymns, and the heritage,and meaning that they have for our generation, you should read this book.

Have been waiting for this to come out ever since I got the first volume, and it does not disappoint. Timely and topical, for example, devoting a chapter to Kasparov's favored 6. Be3 Ng4 line which was so effective at Linares 1999. This book was primarily authored by Gallagher, and I like his work very much.

I just finished reading you book, "12 Steps for the Recovering Pharisee (like me)" and like me, too.

Excellent!. It was one of the few books I have ever read that actually got richer as I read farther into it. Usually you kind of get the author pegged in the first couple of chapters. From that point on sometimes it feels like you finish it just to finish it. In your case, I found my desire to keep reading growing as I went on. Thanks.

You write so well. My wife happened to ask me the other day, "Whose writing do you admire?" I said C.S.Lewis - and the next person who came to mind was John Fischer. You probably think that it is a violation of some universal law that I mentioned you in the same breath with "Jack." But I don't. Both of you give me the feeling of breathing pure oxygen.

I usually react negatively to how so many churches use books in classes and small groups rather than getting people into scripture. But in the case of your book, I would make an exception. I wish every Christian would read this. In my small little circle of influence I plan to see what I can do to make that happen.

John Fischer confronts and exposes what we wanted no one to know: That we are all, in one aspect or another, a Recovering Pharisee. Yet, like any 'a-holic' there is something terribly freeing to declare ourselves to be the sinners that we are; without pretension or mask to 'cover ourselves'.

Reading this book which is so brutally honest you cannot help but change, at least one day at a time, into an authentic Christian who will confess on any given day: I am a sinner in need of a Savior...that if I were to be considered for my merit, my 'holiness', my thought life, my true self; I would be considered scumm. That it's not about me, but about Christ!

12 Steps for a Recovering Pharisee (like me) is a book everyone should read. Then keep it next to you during your 'quite time', so that when you go to the Lord, you will go humbly, sincerely, and thankfully.

I recommend this book with all my heart!

In a day when many Christians are so concerned with the moral state of the world around them, John Fischer provides us a wakeup call: the problem isn't others, it is each of us. He speaks about the dangers of spiritual pride, when we hold others (as well as ourselves) to impossible spiritual and moral standards--and when we condemn those who fail to measure up. The examples Fischer uses range from in-depth examination of biblical stories to the sometimes painful reality of his personal experiences. For this book is, in the end, not about something about which he wishes to convict us; rather, it is about something the Lord has been busy dealing with in the life of John Fischer. As I read, I also saw myself here--recognizing how far I, as a "recovering Pharisee," have come in certain areas, and being humbled to see how little progress I have made in many others. This is a necessary book for today, much in the same urgent vein as Dietrich Bonhoeffer's THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP. It breaks apart our carefully constructed spiritual masks and opens us to the truth about ourselves. And that truth--which is indeed God's perspective on our lives--will set us free. . . .