His parents, Paul Reiss and Beryl née Bryant, were not church attendees.
He was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, where took A levels in maths, physics and chemistry, whilst teaching himself A-level divinity.
[4] Whilst serving as chaplain, he met his wife Dixie, whom he married in 1985.
[3] He left Cambridge in 1978 to become selection secretary for the Advisory Council for the Church's Ministry (ACCM) and, from 1986 to 1996, he was team rector of Grantham.
[8] Following his retirement in 2013, Reiss was awarded a Lambeth doctorate for his PhD thesis, entitled The Testing of Vocation: 100 years of ministry selection in the Church of England, based partly on his experiences at the ACCM.