I want to start out by saying that I knew there was a movie but did not know what it was about and then saw the book on NetGalley.

Reverend Michael Spurlock felt called to lead a struggling, in more ways than one, All Saints Episcopal Church in Smyrna, Tennessee. Being from the south and having been part of a church that split, I related to this part of the story so much!

Yes, this book is about a church. Yes, this book is about a pastor and members of the church. Yes, this book is about Karen refugees settling in small-town Tennessee and trying to become part of this congregation. But it is SO much more than that. It’s about trusting God with every decision, whether it makes sense to you or not. It’s about being in a relationship with God that you know the sound of his voice when He is directing you. It’s about trusting God with the small stuff as well as the big, life-altering things.

I shed tears more than once as I read about how God was weaving together this beautiful story of grace.

All Saints was one of those books that caught my eye even though I had never heard anything about the story or its author. I got it because it sounded interesting—and it turned out to be one of the best books I’ve read in a long time!

Michael Spurlock followed a rather circuitous route to becoming an Episcopal priest in Smyrna, Tennessee. As a child from a broken home, he went to church only sporadically, and when he was in high school he told God he was going to direct his own life from then on. In his twenties, however, he became interesting in religion again, and began attending the Catholic church, but later chose to become an Episcopal priest. After finishing seminary, he was asked to go to Smyrna to take care of a church that had just been through a nasty split, and was now facing losing their building because they couldn’t pay the mortgage on it.

Ye Win, on the opposite side of the world in Burma, now known as Myanmar, had a very different life. Raised by devoutly Christian parents from the people group known as Karen, he knew only war all his life, and turned his back on the faith of his family when he joined the Karen resistance army at the age of 13. After being wounded when he was 19, he escorted a group of refugees to Thailand so he could find medical help. After some time in refugee camps there, he was able to go to the United States, and, with a group of more than 70 other Karen, found himself in Smyrna, Tennessee.

When a group of destitute Karen refugees showed up at All Saints, asking for friendship and church, Michael Spurlock hardly knew what to do. His small church was bankrupt, trying to sell their building so they could get out from under the mortgage they couldn’t pay—how could they help these poor people? The answer was beyond his imagination!

I found this story absolutely amazing. The way God worked to pull together a splintered, hurting group of Americans and rebuild the church through the Burmese refugees is incredible. I loved the way it was so obvious that God was the one doing the work—there was no way this could have happened through human means.

The story of the civil war in Burma was quite interesting, although awful, too. I had heard little bits about it, and a few years ago met some refugees who had spent many years in the refugee camps that Ye Win and his family came out of. I found it very interesting to read the full story of the Karen and how they tried—and are still trying—to survive. The authors have done a masterful job of weaving two stories together into one cohesive whole, showing the finger of God at work.

I received a free ecopy of this book and chose to write a review.

WARNING: The war in Burma is mentioned a few times.

In reading this book, I really enjoyed seeing the work of God in Smyrna, Tennessee’s All Saints church, as well as in the lives of the 70+ Karen refugees who found refuge and a new beginning there. The Karen people had gone through such tragedy in their homeland, and yet they never lost their faith in Jesus, or their hope for a better future. Although heart-wrenching at times, this is an incredible true story of faith, family, friendship, bravery, and redemption. I found this book to be very inspirational, and I look forward to seeing the "All Saints" film!

I received a copy of this book from Bethany House in exchange for an honest review.

I watched the movie of this story about a month ago and I liked reading the book as it brought more depth to the main characters. It included a lot of Ye Win’s and Michael Spurlock’s background and had an overall biographical feel and didn’t just focus on saving the church as was shown in the movie. I found this book to be an inspiring message of how God works and how He can work through a community that comes together and relies on Him. I also liked that it included what happened even when Spurlock left for another church, showing that it was God working through Spurlock and that He could still work in the church regardless of who was leading it.

All Saints

by
Micheal Spurlock
Jeanette Windle

A Review

If you have seen the movie, you will want to read the book to get the rest of the story. If you have not seen the movie, you will want to read the book to get the whole story.

The movie was a moving experience, but the book provides so much more detail that the reader quickly realizes that the story is much more important than that found on the big screen. Rev. Michael Spurlock is appointed to a dead end church in Smyrna, TN. The church had gone through a very difficult church split and had a mortgage that far exceeded the remaining congregation's ability to care for themselves. The decision had been made by the local church and the denominational representatives to sell the property and move to a smaller location that could be had for the cost of rent while they began the rebuilding of the church.

God had other ideas.

Into their midst walked a small group of refugees - sent to check out the local Episcopal Church. On the surface, it would appear that the refugees would bring more drain on the resources of the church than they could possibly add. But, to quote myself, "God had other ideas."

What happened was the transformation of lives - both the American church members who stayed with the church and the Karenese refugees that joined them in worship. But the transformed lives did not stop there - it would include, over time, members of the Smyrna community, both its general population and its officials (police, government, etc.). Pastor Spurlock, the church, and the Karen would need to learn to trust God if the church was going to survive. Throughout the story we see unexpected answers to prayer - from the heavens, in the form of needed rain; people, who brought skills at the right time; and equipment, like the "1000 gallon water tank with a pump mounted on a trailer."

The story introduces us to the pain that the church felt when Rev. Spurlock chose after four years to take a position in New York, but the reader also celebrates with the church as they realized that God had sent the next pastor that they needed on their spiritual journey.

At one level, All Saints is the story of a church. But it is also the story of changed lives - lives unexpectedly touched by the Grace of God.
______________
This review is based on a free electronic copy provided by the publisher for the purpose of creating this review. The opinions are mine alone.

About a decade ago, my mother mentioned that the small Baptist church she attends in downtown Ottawa had seen an influx of newcomers whose English was limited to non-existent.9780764230271.jpg

She didn’t know much about them. They were Karen people from Myanmar (or Burma as it is sometimes known – the name keeps changing) who had come to Canada as refugees. Since they were of Baptist background they chose the closest Baptist church when they were looking for a place to worship.

I attend that church usually only a couple of times a year, at Christmas or my mother’s birthday, and have seen how the Karen community have made some subtle changes to the church.

The first thing was the influx of children. Downtown Baptist churches usually have an aging population. I’m not sure how many Karen were part of the group, but I did notice that the number of children who came to the front of the sanctuary for the children’s story had increased dramatically. The two or three was now at least 10.

The makeup of the choir changed too. Suddenly there were about half a dozen teenage girls taking part – quite a change for a ten person choir with, I think, an average age of about 65. The worship service also acquired a slight bilingual flavor – the daily Scripture reading was always read in English and Karen.

The last time I was there I noticed that the church had a new fundraising project, looking to set up a fund to help these Karen believers with university tuition. I don’t know how integrated the original community and the newcomers have become – but they certainly have tried.

All of which is an introduction to All Saints, by Michael Spurlock and Jeannette Windle. Both the book and the film of the same name came out last month. It is the story of an Episcopal (Anglican) church in Smyrna, Tennessee, and the Karen refugees who came to it in 2007.

I was drawn to the book by the similarities with my mother’s church, but what happened at All Saints was quite different. The church was struggling and on the brink of closure when 70 Karen showed up at the door looking for a place to worship (and for some help figuring out their new American homeland). I gather there was national news coverage of what happened next, but somehow I missed that so the story was new to me.

Pretty much everyone likes an inspirational tale, and All Saints certainly fits the bill. There is enough backstory that the reader can understand who the Karen are and why they came to America as refugees. It is an easy read, and perhaps some of the obstacles the Karen faced have been glossed over. The focus is on triumph, no adversity.

My biggest disappointment was the decision to write the book in the third person. Michael Spurlock was the rector of All Saints, Smyrna, from 2007-2010. He was the one who led the congregation as they opened their arms to people from another race and culture. I would have though a first-person account would have been even more powerful.

One of the biggest problems any church has is living up to the Biblical standards Jesus set for his community. We human tend toward the selfish, not the selfless. We are less than welcoming to strangers and we aren’t good at sharing. All too often Christianity in action is more an ideal than a reality. In All Saints we find a church struggling to be true to their faith, to put the words of Scripture into action and succeeding. The book perhaps makes it seem easier than it actually was, but that makes it no less inspiring.

“Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc.”