Follow Me to Freedom by Shane Claiborne and John Perkins

The idea of Follow Me to Freedom is that in order to be a good leader, you first have to be a good follower (of Christ).  This book is an attempt to teach us about “followership” as Shane Claiborne puts it.

I listened to this on audiobook.  It is presented as a conversation format, alternating between Shane Claiborne and John Perkins.  I am a fan of both of these men.  They are not perfect in all that they do or have said, but they have lived out their lives attempting to follow God and doing the actual front line work that they call the rest of us to.  If you read me very often you know I like authors to read their own books, and the first 20 minutes of the book, the introduction, they do narrate, but then it changes to other narrators that just cannot match the personality that Claiborne and Perkins have.  They seem a bit too animated at times, and occationally animated at the wrong things.  Over time they grew on me, but I still wish that Perkins and Claiborne had read it themselves.  That being said I got used to the narrators by the end and thought they did a fine job, they just were Shane and John.

These are both very good teachers, well grounded both in scripture and on the ground work.  What they have to say is important and well thought out.  But if you have read a good selection of the authors’ other works, this may not be much new material.  I do find the combination of a young white radical and an older African American patriarch moving.  They do interact and I can imagine what they must really be like together and I wish I was there too.  Some of the editing of the audiobook is a little forced (especially with some of the jokes.)  But overall it is a great introduction to the theology of these two men.

This book is about learning how to follow Christ before trying to lead.  That is clearly something these two have attempted to do.  You can learn from them, pick up the book.

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Disclosure: This book was provided free for review from chistianaudio.com.  The book is also available in paperback for $10.19 from Amazon or on kindle for $7.99 or from christianaudio for $10.98