I Don’t Want to Have the Prayer

Today’s post is a review of Lutheran author (and PK) Karen Averitt’s memoir, I Don’t Want to Have the Prayer: A Messy Pastor’s Kid Does Her Memory Work.

I Don’t Want to Have the Prayer Review

I may have grabbed this extra eagerly since I’m a pastor’s wife myself and wonder what it’s like for my kids to be PKs. It was an easy, pleasurable, charming read and look into the not so distant past. As a fellow LCMSer, various things struck me and resonated throughout the book.

Did I secretly hope that there would be theological nuggets that would help me to raise my kids? Maybe not so secretly. This was more a look back to a previous generation of pastors and pastors wives than a bunch of lessons I could apply to myself in the most narrow sense. Since I am in sort of a theological enclave, it was interesting to note pastoral differences between her dad, my husband, and the pastors of my own past.

I appreciated how the two sides of her family were very different. That let the book give a broader perspective, even as it told stories about both of her parents—one who may have been easier to get to know than the other.

I laughed out loud at some of the fashion and social awkwardness of her childhood. In a way that made me think we would have been friends! 

If you like memoirs, this is an enjoyable one. If you’re curious about previous generations of Lutherans but not wanting to go back a hundred years (!), likewise this is a book for you. 🙂 Along those same lines, I Don’t Want to Have the Prayer isn’t about a time so very long ago: you don’t need to like reading historical fiction to get a kick out of this writer, her upbringing, and the Lutherans who have loved her so long. 

 

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