American Society for Church Growth - Book Review
Success by Design: Ten Biblical Secrets to Help You Achieve Your God-Given Potential
This book is a concise work dealing with what the author believes to be the critical components for a successful life. Drawing from numerous years in the business, legal, and ministerial world (Hirsch is a rabbi on staff at Baruch HaShem Synagogue, one of the largest Messianic synagogues in the world), the author has forged the book from much personal experience.
Hirsch is to be commended for his passion for evangelism and for realizing that a relationship with the Lord is to precede the implementation of the ten biblical secrets. For example, he notes, "But now I know without a doubt that true success will never come unless you first get yourself right with God through Jesus Christ. From this beginning, everything else in this book flows."
The book has at least three strengths worth noting. First, this work is very concise. Hirsch takes less than 192 pages to delineate the ten secrets to achieving one's God-given potential. Busy ministers will find the concise nature an asset to their lives and ministries.
Second, this work is replete with personal stories, "one-liner" quotations, anecdotes, and discussions of how to implement the ten secrets into one's own life. The book is easy to read, seldom soporific, and designed to be highly practical.
Third, the practical nature of this work makes it an excellent leadership/training tool for use in local churches. There are many paragraphs and sections that church leaders can extract and develop into excellent sermon illustrations, 10- to 15-minute leadership training sessions, or even an entire training class focused on the book's contents.
Reviewed by J. D. Payne, Ph.D., associate pastor at New Whiteland Baptist Church, assistant professor at Crossroads Bible College, Indianapolis, IN, and an adjunct professor at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY.
This review was originally published in Strategies for Today's Leader.