All Saints

I loved John Corbett's portrayal of Chris Stevens in the 1990s TV series Northern Exposure, so I decided to see what else he's been in and came across the 2017 movie All Saints. It had a decent imdb rating and was available on a channel I get, so I watched it not expecting much. Well, I really enjoyed it and the presence of Barry Corbin (Corbett's Northern Exposure co-star) was an added treat. Their relationship in All Saints was reminiscent of their Northern Exposure relationship, so that was fun. Corbett's sermons as Pastor Michael Spurlock were also strikingly similar in tone to Chris Stevens's on air musings on Cicely, Alaska's radio station.

All Saints is a sweet, uplifting, wholesome movie anyone can enjoy.

Based on a true story. Great back story. Relax and escape the stress of your life while in the theater routing for the success of these people. Run, don't walk to the theater. The story line is one of determination and who doesn't need that right about now. Go see the movie and then hear me say, "I told you so."

Everything I was seeing told me to expect another feel good preachy movie. Where folks have an obstacle and overcome it with faith.

It was so much more than that and a great and inspiring message for all of humanity. There indeed obstacles, many major ones. How those obstacles are faced and overcome and how they change people and their community was worth the watch and even worthy of a movie ticket in my opinion.

If you have not seen it please do.

While Hollywood is loathe to admit it, while the studios often make money, a very large percentage of the public simply never goes to movies. Some of this, no doubt, is because movies often are filled with violence and other offensive content and many choose not to see it and spend their dollars on such films. Fortunately, in recent years various small studios have sprung up to fill this gap...and "All Saints" is among the best of these films I have seen.

This is the inspirational story of All Saints Episcopal Church, which is in rural Tennessee. The church was about to be sold as the membership had dwindled down to almost nothing. Reverend Spurlock (John Corbett) is brought in to close up shop, so to speak, but ended up leading an effort to try to save the church property because it had just become such an important part of a group of Burmese refugees' lives...and with their help he worked himself practically to death to save something many felt wasn't worth saving.

While technically speaking, there are films that look a bit better and feature CGI and huge stars, this one manages to entertain anyway and it sure didn't hurt that the picture had Corbett and a few other familiar faces. Overall, very well made and uplifting...the sort of film you could take anyone to see (unless, perhaps, they are Satan worshipers...I would take them to see "It" instead).

In spite of the fact that I, myself, am a pastor, I'm not generally enamoured of Christian movies. They're too formulaic and entirely predictable to be truly interesting. But this movie did pique my curiosity. First, because it was a true story about a real church and a real pastor facing a real challenge that's so familiar to many churches today. Second, because it didn't sound as if it was a hard-sell evangelical type of story (it is, after all, about an Episcopalian Church - hardly a hotbed of fundamentalism) but was rather about the real journey of one congregation to redefine its purpose. All Saints was a small and struggling Episcopal Church in Smyrna, Tennessee that was slated to close because it could no longer afford its mortgage. Then, suddenly, a large group of refugees from Myanmar - who happened to be Anglican - moved to the community and started attending the church. Together with the pastor, Michael Spurlock (who was newly ordained and had been assigned to All Saints for the sole purpose of guiding them to their end - a sort of pastoral palliative care for a dying congregation), the newcomers transform the church by creating a farm on its property, and using the produce to both feed the refugee population and to produce income for the church, giving the congregation new life and convincing the ecclesiastical powers that be to keep it open as a mission church.

The story isn't exactly an "exciting" one - but it's very faithful and faith-filled. Not in a fundamentalist sense, but in the sense of a diverse group of faithful Christians who work together to find a way to make a difference, and who feel themselves led by God to a new way of being "church." It's a pleasant and inspiring movie to watch. It's not hard-sell Christian. Among those who contribute to the farm are Buddhists and even "nothings" (presumably atheists) along with long time congregational members and members of a presumably evangelical mega-church nearby. But this particular church and its mission drew together all of these folk who in the normal course of things might never have known each other or worked together.

I thought the cast - particularly John Corbett and Cara Buono as Pastor Michael Surlock and his wife Aimee and also Nelson Lee as Ye Win (who was the leader of the refugee population) - were strong, and the story resonated with me and should resonate with anyone concerned about the plight of the church in so many places today and who are looking for a sign that the faith still matters and the church still makes a difference. This movie accomplished that. Well done. 7/10