John G. Fleischmann

John George Fleischmann, born in 1960, is an American Lutheran pastor, church musician, hymn writer, and emergency-services chaplain. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Church Music from Concordia College, Bronxville, in 1982 and a Master of Divinity from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, in 1986. Ordained in 1986, he served Emanuel Lutheran Church in Patchogue, New York, before becoming pastor of Christ Lutheran Church in East Moriches in 1991. He later completed a Doctor of Ministry degree at Trinity Seminary in 2020.

Fleischmann has served the Atlantic District of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod in several capacities and has carried out extensive chaplaincy and trauma-support work among police, fire, and emergency medical personnel. This combination of pastoral ministry, church-music training, and practical care provides relevant context for My Neighbor, though no verified personal account of the hymn's composition has been located.

The Open Hymnal Project credits Fleischmann with the eight-stanza text My Neighbor and dates it to 2007. The project added the hymn to its collection in 2011, pairing it with TALLIS' CANON. Its theological sequence moves from sin and helplessness through Christ's mercy and justification to the Christian vocation of serving the neighbor.