A Portrait of the Pastor as a Young Man. An intimate look at a pastor and his first church. This is a wonderful look back at Lischer's early years in ministry. It details some of his struggles as a well-educated city boy trying to relate to a rural congregation, and expertly captures the difficulties of the early years in ministry for anyone trying to reconcile many years of education with the reality of life as a pastor. Lischer's wonderfully understated sense of humor comes through in many places. Highly recommended.

With engaging wit and warm insight Richard Lischer allows us to sneak a peak behind his first pastorate from Lutheran Seminary. Being unfamiliar with Lutheranism I was awed by the profundity of belief and the rich relationships into the community that he entered. He entered as a virgin and left as a lover of his people that God graciously allowed him to pastor. Take the time to read this book and enter heartache, grace, empathy, communion and fellowship of the deepest level. Experience the privilege of a new way of seeing people.

I love this book, but I was looking for the hard jacket, and could only find softcover.

One can easily see why this book was awarded the Outstanding Book of 1995 by the Religious Speech Communication Assoc., it is so well written. The research appears exhaustive, the writer is is firm touch with his subject matter, having poured over sermon manuscripts and listened to tape after tape, and conducted interview upon interview.

One is able to grasp the essence of King's preaching from this reading. Long suspecting that King comes out of the liberal element in the church, this confirmed that suspiscion. The theology and subsequent preaching is far from what my confession would maintain as Biblical. This is social gospel, theology not from heaven down, but earth up, trying to impose its agenda upon God, rather than letting His word and plan of salvation have its way.

While one can easily relate to the race problems and frustrations with an American that would not listen to the pleas, but an America that responded violently, there remains no cause to make the precious Gospel a political one. Jesus had attempts to preach such freedom from political oppression, but in each and every instance, He maintained the gospel at the level it is intended, spiritual.

King thus is out of sync with his namesake, Martin Luther, as well as the historic Christian church. The gospel is about the forgiveness of sins for the life everlasting. As the famous hymn sings: "What is the World to Me?"

This book is vibrant with the complexities of the background and influences on King's theology and preaching. Enjoyed it, yet sad that the title "preacher" is applied to such a false teacher of God's Word. To apply humanity's agenda above and beyond God's is the height of sin and rebellion.

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.

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.

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.