Follow Me to Freedom, Leadership / Followership and Shane Claiborn and John Perkins

Come along as we live out this conversation … there are many obstacles—so much suffering, poverty and violence. But our God is familiar with suffering. Our God can swallow up armies and pour out bread from the heavens. Wall Street may fail us, but the God who takes care of the lilies and the sparrows will never let us down. Our Savior has stared evil in the face and overcome it with love. And now we are invited to join the triumph of the cross … and to lead others on the narrow, rugged road to freedom. – From the back cover of the book

The cover for the Audiobook Version of Shane Claiborn and John Perkins book Follow Me To Freedom: Leading as Ordinary Radicals ( Google Books || Amazon ). I uploaded it for my blog post Follow Me to Freedom, Leadership / Followership and Shane Claiborn and John Perkins one of my Book Reviews.

I have really been inspired and encouraged by Shane Claiborn, and you can read my other book review A Look into Joining the Irresistible Revolution. While, I am somewhat familiar with Shane and the Simple Way (the intentional community Shane is involved with), I had not heard of John Perkins before. Interestingly enough, Jamie, my co-worker who lent me a copy of this audio book does know him.

As I am living a considerable distance from work, read my blog post When it Rains it Pours for some more information surrounding my move to Prosser, I was able to listen to the whole book in just a little over a week. During my car ride, it monopolized my time, not even leaving very much space for my normally appreciated National Public Radio listening Fervor. I came to find out later about the week (I believe that’s how long she said, but it might have been considerably longer) that spent with John Perkins. She talked about how her time spent with John challenged her perspectives on life and even influenced her later decision to move into the impoverished and underserved community of East Pasco. I also found out from her that he is an 82 year old advocate.

I didn’t read the book itself, so I am not sure how it flowed in its conversational format, but it seemed perfect for the audio format. It’s really structured as more of a conversation between Shane and John and goes back and forth between the two. I’m actually curious how the book displays the differences in voices that were so easily displayed by the portraying authors’ voices.

There were a number of really emboldening stories, [deep thoughts][18], topics that are import to me (community, leadership, how to follow, politics, etc.). Many of the topics addressed came back to relationship and community and how to do community development. The organization, Christian Community Development Association, came up a number of times. It really spoke to me in my position as the chairperson of the Pasco Discovery Coalition. Some of the methods of organizing these movements, the foundational inclusion of what they call indigenous leaders were all such promising topics. Now it will be trying to figure out how to help guide our coalition in that direction.

I would highly recommend this book, especially in its audio book format for any reader.