I ♥ Kirribilli and Jesus

Last night I took a colleague from work along to see the I ♥ Kirribilli Art Exhibition that is currently running at my church. You can read Hayley's post about reason for the exhibition here. I helped out at the opening on Saturday and we gave out six hundred cupcakes to locals - I was amazed!

But, back to my colleague, I've done the occasional thing outside work with her such as going to a movie, going to hear Alain de Botton speak at the Opera House, she's come over for dinner etc. I always find her quite a formidable discussion opponent - she likes a good debate, she's very intelligent, she reads government policies online for fun, she's done her own vast exploration of most things she believes and if she has a conviction about something (and she has lots of them!) she has her own very good reasons for it and holds her opinions strongly.

So, anyway, we had a bit of fun exclaiming over and discussing the artworks, then went for dinner down the road, and she opened more than she ever has there about her personal life, times when she's homesick (she immigrated from Scotland on her own) and it was a nice time of just sharing life. Then we strolled around the waterfront admiring the city lights, goofed around in front of the ghastly Luna Park face and so on. It wasn't till the car ride home that we got to the serious "God talk", and then I ended up parked out the front of her place for another ten minutes or so as we continued. To be honest, I feel like I botched it. I felt like my brain actually packed up about 2 pm yesterday and I wanted to sleep at my desk and I had had a congestion sort of headache all through dinner (had a cold over the weekend, but there is no way I am going near pseudoephedrine again!) and she was countering me with a lot of Buddhist philosophy that left me floundering on a number of occasions. But all up, when I think about the evening, we made good "progress" (sounds all very technical but you know what I mean) in terms of deepening the relationship and also the conversation about life, the universe and everything. I was actually quite suprised when she told me she is no longer an atheist, whereas once she was, she just thinks God is a concept, or "life force", not a being or external authority (classic Buddhist ideas really - she even told me she thinks Jesus was a Buddha and there is good evidence for that?!).

I did come away feeling like I was a bit rusty in certain areas though. Once upon a time I even went a Credo apologetics conference in Gothenburg, Sweden, at which William Lane Craig was the speaker and hung about at L'Abri reading Francis Schaeffer, but for some reason last night didn't feel like I could get a cohesive response out. One of the things that frustrates me about trying to share the gospel with people is that I never seem to get to draw Two Ways to Live on a napkin, I always end up mired in the other person's world-view along the way (funny that about people - they will insist on being other people!). And I wouldn't ever say that we need clever arguments to effectively share the gospel, but I do usually end up feeling like I need the clever arguments anyway. I'm tempted now to go, 'let me just tell you exactly what I believe' and get the gospel out there clearly so at least I know I've said it! But, I just need to keep praying to the God who changes hearts instead of having mental conversation re-runs.

I haven't read Tim Keller's Reason for God yet, but I think I am going to get my hands on a copy and see if it's suitable to hand over. She's an avid reader and said several times last night that she thinks you need to work these things out for yourself and not just because someone tells you and so on and gets most of her ideas from books. She wasn't really interested in coming along to church (she went to Sunday School every week till she was about 12 in Scotland, so I thought she might like to see how we do things here) but she might read a book.

Tonight I am back at the exhibition with my connect group, to be the helpers for some of the evening, then we'll have dinner together afterwards. It is fun - and well done. There's live music playing, the artwork is interesting and it has a cool vibe. If you live around the area, you should come and bring your friends!