Saving St. Savior's is a satirical novel about an ultra-liberal pastor serving an aging church. His enthusiasm and ambitious ideas for the church include relocating its ministry to a nearby conference center, in a beautiful setting by a river. Not everyone supports his plans or vague theology, however, and tensions arise over the move, whether or not to save the church organ, and an accusation of sexual harassment.
The pastor's strong ecumenical orientation leads him to plan an inter-faith conference on the Emerging Church, to explore what churches should be like in a post-modern society. He seeks to bring in international participants, including Muslim, Jewish and agnostic representatives, but not evangelicals, because he sees them as intolerant.
He moves ahead with the planning despite the church's serious financial problems and hopes to resolve these by selling the downtown church building, which needs extensive renovation. The church's riverside property includes a defunct shooting range. Following a fatal shooting in a nearby town, a conservative church revives the shooting range's lease, to help the community to protect themselves. This development embarrasses St. Savior's and its pastor. He seeks legal advice to find a way to break the lease.
When the mentally unwell church organist brings a baseless charge of sexual harassment against the pastor, he takes a sabbatical. While temporarily relieved of his duties he is invited to teach a course at a local college when the professor is injured in a skiing accident and he takes her place. He learns she attends a small church that meets on the conference center property, in a boathouse next to the river. He begins visiting the boathouse, finding himself drawn to the setting and senses that God is speaking to him.
As his relationship with the professor develops, she presses him on his relationship with Jesus, resulting in him coming to a genuine faith in Christ.
