Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim's Tale

I like the concept of this book, introduce a saint to modern Christians through story and not just biography. Saint Francis, was a transitional Christian and is very relevant to today's Christians, maybe especially to evangelicals.

The weakness is that it isn't great literature. At one point it talks about the purpose of great art to be the great art and not propaganda and occasionally this seems to dip to propaganda instead of focusing on the art.

The positive is that it does what I perceive as its purpose, it makes you reconsider your understanding of the church, your role as a Christian, Christ and especially Francis.

I would recommend it. I have been reading a lot of heavier works on the spiritual disciplines and this was a good contribution as well as balance.

http://bookwi.se/chasing-francis-by-ian-morgan-cron/

Ha! I didn't realise until the end that it was a work of fiction. So, I feel less bad about thinking the main character has a terrible writing/humour style! This is a fictionalized version of the new monastic movement which happened (is still happening? continues to happen every so often?) ex: Shane Claiborne in the early-mid 2000s where Christians go back to the ‘roots' of Christianity: community building, environmentalism, poverty work, anti-materialism. Often inspired by St Francis of Assisi, as is the mega-preacher, Chase, in this book. Only he goes to Italy for a crash course on the Saint courtesy of his monk uncle! Lots of hyperbole about Italian food and culture. Da, wish someone would send me to Italy now.

As someone with an evangelical Protestant background, I related with Chase (main character) and his journey to rediscover who Christ is.