Leap of Faith

Several of our members enjoyed the movie, Leap of Faith for our Sunday night movie. The movie stars Steve Martin as a traveling evangelist/con man. In the movie, he and his "ministry team" get stuck in a small Kansas town and decide to set up their tents and have a revival. During their stay, the Rev. Jonas Nightingale's (Steve Martin's character) begins the revival by getting the poor residents to give him their last money as a testimony of faith.

What Nightingale later learns through the contentious efforts of the local Sherriff (played by Liam Neeson), is that the almost 25% of the town is unemployed and the rest of the town faces certain ruin due to a lack of rain (if it doesn't rain soon, the farmers will loose their corn crops). In the story, Nightingale's chief of operations Jane (Debra Winger) is falling for the handsome local Sherriff, a man of principles, the kind of principles that Jane is feeling herself void of.

And, there is another principle character in the story, a boy named Boyd (Lukas Haas) who was crippled as the result of a semi-truck accident and wants to be healed.

The story line is exceptional, the warped excuses of the evangelist are explained, and the ending is wonderful. There is enough stuff in this movie to have an evening full of after-dinner conversation.

After the movie was finished, we all had a nice conversation about faith, our messiness in doing good and discovering that even in spite of ourselves, we can find God's grace.