Wow wow wow. This book is one of my new all time favorites. I love Ian Morgan Cron but have never ready any of his fiction books before this. I also never knew much about Francis of Assisi but now I want to learn everything! This book resonated with my soul in a way that is difficult to convey with words at 1am so hopefully this stream of consciousness review makes sense!This book came to me at the most perfect time as I’m struggling with my faith and what I believe about who God is. I have been...

I really loved this book! (Even though I put it down for a year part way through). This is a really wonderful picture of ecumenism. No one is trying to convince anyone of their ‘side’, rather it is all about teaching and learning about St Francis of Assisi. I thought that was beautiful and necessary. I also didn’t realize until the day after I finished this book that it is not, in fact, a memoir. It is fiction. This was both impressive and disappointing, but I’m choosing impressive.

This was a novel I wish was a true story, so I could follow up on the life of the main character, Chase Falson. Cron did a wonderful job of weaving fiction with reality and allowing us to be taken on the pilgrimage with Chase to Assisi, where we meet St. Francis and learn so much about and from him. You cannot help but be changed by this book, as we're led to ask the same questions faced by Chase, who's struggling with faith and purpose in a church that is more influenced by the world than influ...

At the end of 2011 I was invited to write a brief review for a best-of list. The book was Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me, a memoir by Ian Morgan Cron about growing up in a car wash. Just kidding. The title was as accurate to the content as it was creatively uncreative, and the book was absorbing. I wrote an effusive review of the book and resolved that I would eventually, finally, read his first book, Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim's Tale. Then I forgot about it for a while.Then I had the chance

“First, if Francis were around today, he'd say our church community relies too much on words to tell others about our faith. For Francis, the gathered community was as potent a form of witness as words. He was convinced that how we live together is what attracts people to faith.”I read this book quickly because it was the right book at the right time. I needed something about faith, love and hope and so I fell into this and didn’t come up for air until I was finished. At the time, this was a goo...

I loved the idea behind this book, as well as the insights about St. Francis. I felt less lonely when I read this book and more connected to those who are disillusioned with the religion of their youth. This is a book best read slowly (which I did not) and perhaps in a setting where it could be discussed with others. I'd like to read more about St. Francis as it seems he and I may have been kindred spirits, at least at some time in my life. I may be a bit to cynical these days.What I didn't like...

One important things to know about Chasing Francis is that it is what Cron calls wisdom literature: “a delicate balance of fiction and nonfiction, pilgrimage and teaching.”Chasing Francis is an appeal more to the mind and soul than to the heart. The story didn’t engage my emotions in a very satisfying way–which is why it was important to understand that what I was reading was not meant to (as opposed to true, straight fiction, which is meant to do just that). Knowing this helped to alleviate dis...

Slow start but gems hidden in and about if you stay with it! Real gems!

This is the reflection essay I wrote about "Chasing Francis" for my Christian Beliefs course at MidAmerica Nazarene University under Dr. Jacob Lett:“In Italy, I found a mentor named Saint Francis of Assisi who taught me that the church of the future needs to listen to the church of the past” (191).Reading the novel "Chasing Francis" by Ian Morgan Cron has been one of the most challenging and spiritually-transformative experiences of my life. A bit dramatic? I don’t think so. The book is centered...

Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim's Tale by Ian Morgan Cronpublished by Zondervan and released May 7.13Ian Cron introduces us to Francis of Assissi via his impact on a contemporary pastor, Chase Falson, who hits the wall in his faith journey after the death of one of his parish children. Taking a much needed break to restore, refresh and rediscover faith, he travels to Italy to spend time with his uncle, a Fransiscan priest. While he's on this spiritual journey, the youth pastor back home is on a campa...

I read this book during Lent in 2017 at a close friend's recommendation when I was still a Christian. I have a lot to say about Chasing Francis, very of little of which pertains to its actual contents - more than anything, I want to call up Ian Morgan Cron and lay my full set of questions and a few accusations on him. On the one hand, I am appreciative of the vulnerability and humility with which Cron tells his story and the flashes of real insight and humor that color his prose that, unlike a l...

"Chase Falson has lost his faith so he crosses the Atlantic to visit his uncle, a Franciscan priest, where he encounters the teachings of Francis of Assisi and rediscovers his ancient faith. Follow Chase's spiritual journey in the footsteps of Francis, and then begin one of your own through the pilgrim's guide included in this book."I read this book for my hometown book club. At first I was very skeptical of it because of the huge religious storyline to the book. BUT this book turned out to be r...

In this book, Ian Morgan Cron skillfully weaves together an inspiring biography of Francis of Assisi with an emotionally engaging fictional account of a modern-day pastor's doubt-ridden, earnest spiritual journey. By embedding a historical biography of Francis in an otherwise fictional tale, Cron makes Francis' life more accessible to readers who would be unlikely to read non-fiction for pleasure. While the story of "Chasing Francis" is ultimately a hopeful one, Cron admirably depicts church con...

Although this book is a novel, I kept wondering how much is somewhat autobiographical because the author is(was) the pastor of a church in Connecticut. When I went on the church website it shows another person as being senior pastor and he is not listed among the staff. So, being curious, I googled him and found that he is a doctoral student, studying Thomas Merton. Well, anyway, I do agree that we should be "the body" of Christ and therefore, be His hands and feet when it comes to helping the p...

I found myself relating to what the character, Chase, was experiencing and going through but I never quite felt like I was emotionally invested. I found the story to be a bit predictable, a little cheesy, and felt like I would rather have just read something by St. Francis than a non-fiction story about some of his theology. I think the thing is that I have already been through much of what the character was facing. It wasn't new to me or eye opening and so it didn't hit me in a way that really

First I'd like to thank the publisher and BookSneeze for allowing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.I give out 5 star reviews very rarely....meaning, about 1-2% of the books I read, are truly what I consider worthy of 5 stars. It has to change my life in some way, and this book did exactly that. It was such an interesting look into St Francis of Assisi's life, and such a modern story that it was hard not to get caught up in it. Ever since I started reading this book, it wa

My wife Karen picked this book up at our local Salvation Army thrift shop and suggested that we read it together during our recent vacation. We did a lot of driving on this vacation and so we would often read it aloud in the car, with Karen doing most of the reading. The author writes as a fictitious lead pastor in a mainstream evangelical church in Connecticut. In the midst of a "successful" ministry in which he had founded a growing church, he began to experience a personal awakening that bega...

The Pop-Christian book market is dominated by Evangelicals, so it was interesting to read a book by a mainline priest that follows the formula but contributes an entirely different slant. Instead of a book with an incidental plot that is really just a glorified evangelical street tract, this is a book with an interesting plot that descends into a glorified mainline social gospel essay (since there's no such thing as a tract in liberal circles...).This is not a bad book. The central idea of a pas...

This is an introduction to the theology of Francis of Assisi in novelized form. It didn't quite win me over, but I have to give the author credit for trying something different. As a novel, it had some flaws--kind of hokey, "happy-friends" character interactions, not much dramatic tension, forced-sounding dialogue. To get factual information across, the author used the device of journal entries by the main character. My personal preference would be to get factual info straight-up, but some peopl...

Chasing Francis was a pretty big letdown. The majority of the "radical" ideas discussed throughout the book were concepts and practices that I've heard regularly discussed in evangelical Christianity; none of it seemed particularly new or transformative to me. The apparent doubts that Chase was experiencing couldn't have been too intense, as letting go of foundational beliefs (or leaving Christianity completely) was never an option presented in the story. And can we just talk about that church s...