Customer Reviews

Open Secrets: A Spiritual Journey Through a Country Church

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Bored with the Mitford series (as I was)? Unsatisfied by "Velma Still Cooks in Leeway" (ditto)? Truth can often be much more interesting and engaging than fiction, as it is in this case. As a person who takes a great deal of interest in the ministerial life, I found it hard to put this book down. A young, beginning pastor with a PhD in Theology is called to a rural parish in New Cana, Illinois, where most of the church members, whose lives revolve around farming, are related to one another. It's the typical clash of cultures, the educated, citified parson attempting to relate to a largely uneducated congregation of country folks. As they grudgingly learn to accept one another, there are many eventful occurrences, from unwanted pregnancies, open adultery by a young couple whom the pastor offends by using a cuss word, the arrest of an abusive parishoner in the church building, the battle for power with an unscrupulous undertaker, to a rather comic attempt to varnish the sanctuary floor. The final event in Pastor Lischer's ministry at New Cana, the church anniversary picnic which doubles as his farewell, is rather poignant. As he says while watching his little girl ride a pony for the first time that afternoon, "My wife and I each felt a twinge of regret as we watched her and realized that she was losing the sort of community she would not remember and never know again". May we all experience that sort of community some time in our lives.

This memoir deserves much more circulation than it is receiving. (My entire state-- Rhode Island-- has bought only one copy!) It is a beautifully written, intelligent and touching look back nearly 30 years to a Lutheran pastor's youth and the small town church he led. How much more profound is this account of a pastor baptizing babies who are about to die than an account of one more celebrity. Lischer's memoir also describes an America that once was. I have no idea if "community" still exists in Illinois as it did in the early '70s, but somehow many scenes in this book, such as the final picnic, made me weep. At the same time, Lischer is frequently laugh-out-loud funny. A truly great book by a phenomenal pastor.

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.

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.

Unlike Richard Lischer, my preparation for ministry did not include Lutheran prep school. Like him, I came under the influence of some distinguished teachers. One of them recommended I read Reinhold Niebuhr's Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic yearly. At least that frequently, I pick up the diary this late pastor-turned-professor kept during his thirteen-year pastorate in Detroit early in the last century. Though Lischer's book will not inspire similar devotion, it is valuable. For one thing, genuinely good explorations of parish dynamics are rare and usually fairly technical. For instance, though Edwin Friedman's Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue is excellent, a degree in sociology would help one benefit from it most fully. For another thing, reflections on ministry tend to be so spiritual as to ignore the persistence of long-standing patterns of behavior and relationships. Reading Chuck Swindoll or Lloyd John Ogilvie, you'd think neither one ever forgot the Host for hospital Communion or got crossways with a funeral director. Lischer picks a middle way, which is also ultimately unsatisfying. Lischer's approach is to tell the stories, largely unadorned, of his three years in a Lutheran congregation in rural Illinois. The stories are good ones: a hopeless young woman whose life is redeemed through the congregation's love, an adulterous young couple who actually clean up their act, a disastrous funeral redeemed by the sweet notes of a trumpet. Every pastor could chime in. Lischer has been criticized for making himself the hero of his stories, and unfairly: He is as often knave as knight. A better criticism acknowledges that the stories need interpretation. What is their significance in Lischer's formation as a pastor, and ultimately as a professor? How do those events illustrate both the persistence of sin and the fulness of God's grace? Lischer raises issues and then fails to explore them. He alludes to his wife's yearnings but says little else. Those of us who served small, poor parishes with young families know of the pressures. Seeing how the Lischers handled theirs would help us see how God helped us. The funeral episode, complete with the elders' tongue-lashing, raises the issue of boundaries: How involved should a pastor become when s/he is sure a parishoner is making a mistake? I want Professor Lischer (for that is what he is, make no mistake about the gulf between the academy and the parish) to make his book more like Neibuhr's diary. Early on, he comments that his sermons spoke to the people's heads but not their hearts. The irony of this book is that he touches our hearts when we need more food for our heads. Lischer is also disingenuous. His book has the feel of a middle-aged man looking back on his youth with appreciation but without much understanding. I came away with the feeling that Lischer wants us not to notice that his three years in New Cana were what the people knew they were: A springboard to a "wider field of service," first in Virginia Beach and then in seminary teaching. Are we really supposed to believe that the Virginia congregation approached him without any indication that he might be willing to move? Such things do happen, but they are rare. Tracy Lischer is now an attorney. We put down Open Secrets with the feeling that the Lischers decided that parish work was beneath them. It is this attitude that is dooming many congregations to mediocre leadership. Are any pastors who chose to stay in congregations working on books?

I really enjoyed this book. Richard Lischer is honest with the reader throughout the entire book, which I really appreciated. It can be a bit deep and sad at times, but, so is life! This book presented an actual look into rural pastor life.

Looking at a church from the outside can leave an interesting first impression. Seeing a church up close (especially the microscopic upcloseness of those who have been leaders in ministry) can be downright ugly. Richard Lischer in his book, Open Secrets: A Spiritual Journey Through a Country Church, shows us the microscopic ugly side and then helps us see that ugliness from a totally different - I believe a more God-ward - perspective.

The book is the true story about his first pastorate in a small country church in Illinois. As he shares the three years he spent at this church, he discloses both the dirty glory of people that at times shine the love of Christ as well as the mixture of immature and inexperienced mistakes he made as a young senior pastor. Without glossing over reality, he tells a touching, subtly humorous story about how God works in marvelous ways through His body, the church.

Overall, I found this book a very enjoyable book - the kind that you can just sit in front of a fire and read from beginning to end. It reminds us (and this is a necessary reminder especially for those of us who enjoy theology) that when the theology is all hashed out and we know we're right, that it then needs to be applied to real life - unfortunately, the two don't always meet well and it is then that we must rely on God to give us direction - whether to capitulate the theology for the sake of a person's life or stand firm for the sake of a person's soul. The answer is not as black and white as one might think and this book makes that clear. Finally, from a ministry perspective, it captures the heart of anyone that has done any leadership in ministry. I highly recommend it.

For a more detailed review, go to the blog in my nickname and click on the Readings category.

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.

I felt like I knew every single character in this book. Richard Lischer's concise, tight descriptions enabled me to find a place in this book and settle in for long visit with the people of his congregation. His humility and honesty in protraying his younger self was such refreshment. What a delightful glimpse behind the altar! I thought each story was a perfect, tiny picture, like a Vermeer, in which the mundane becomes not just note-worthy, but extraordinary.

An unqualified recommendation to buy and read the book. It is good writing, good story telling and good for the reader.