A few weeks ago in church, we were shown a video instead of receiving a sermon.
The video was Godspeed, and it’s the story of Matt Canlis, an American pastor whose desire to change the world grinds to a halt in a Scottish parish.
The tagline is “the pace of being known”.
The video talks living life in a small village where everyone knows everyone else, where most people have lived in the village for generations. That grounding gives people a sense of community.
Ps Matt Canlis talks abut how we, as humans, want to be known.
The way he talks about living in small communities and being known perhaps explains why small-town romance is so popular. Many of us live in cities or larger towns where we are not known, where we are perhaps new and we don’t have those years or sometimes centuries of history.
Small-town stories appeal to our desire to know and be known.
Godspeed also talks about the pace of life.
Matt Canlis walks almost everywhere, living life at the same three miles per hour Jesus would have lived his life. This is an invitation to slow down and live life at Godspeed, to remember that life and growth is about the depth and quality of our relationships.
This, I think, is another appeal of small-town romance.
The characters often have deep and longstanding relationships with others in the town. They laugh and cry together, and help each other out in times of need. This is often missing in our fast-paced lives as we rush-rush-rush from one place to the next, desperate to fit everything in for fear we would otherwise be wasting our lives.
Yet that rush-rush-rush is the opposite of how Jesus lived.
It’s sobering to think that we spend our time rushing when we should be waiting, and instead wind up feeling stretched in all directions, overwhelmed and distracted, unable to focus on anything … least of all God.
Perhaps worse, we tell ourselves we can’t change our circumstances and slow down where we currently live, much less move to a remote village in the back end of Scotland. But is that always true? Sure, we go through busy seasons in life, especially when our children are young and it’s easy to feel there aren’t enough hours in the day. But is that always true?
Or is that the lie we believe?
Perhaps that’s another reason we enjoy fiction in general and small-town fiction in particular. Because the fictional character often has a lie they believe. Part of the point of the story is to show that lie for what it is and allow the character to encounter the truth.
In Christian fiction, that is often God’s truth.
Which is discovered at Godspeed.
Here’s the trailer:
Interesting insights. Thanks!
I might add I think I like small town romances for all of those reasons and also because it’s like a holiday destination to me. So it’s almost like going on a holiday from my usual life to the places I dream of going one day!
That’s a good point. Thanks for visiting!
I saw that short film a few years ago. Not sure I would want to slow down that much, but it is intriguing. I think being truly known and belonging is one of the universal fantasies I love in fiction. As usual, story mirrors what’s true in faith. We are known by Christ, warts and all, yet loved. All of us are hungry for that whether we realise it or not.