Articles
IT'S A GREAT TIME TO SHARE YOUR FAITH!
I work as an Evangelist at Melbourne Uni with the Christian Union group. It's an awesome job!
This year I've been so encouraged by the incredible openness of students to rethink the whole God thing. People have been more open than I've ever seen before in my 11 years of doing University work. This is so encouraging. Every conversation takes a long time because there's so much interest!
I suspect it's because the New Atheism has brought the conversation about Religion out in the open even though they have heaps of objections that people STILL believe in a God and that Religion is Evil and that we've been brainwashed into believing in an imaginary God.... it's been awesome! In the past we have seen incredible apathy amongst the Uni students. It's actually been too hard for students to find out what is 'right' and how can you really be sure that in a few years something else is actually the 'right' thing!
So things are changing!!! Last week I met an Atheist who came along to a talk we were giving on Pornography. He came along because he actually didn't know anything about Religion and he was hearing all this negative stuff and thought he should check it out for himself. He came along and said he was blown away by what was said and it was nothing like he expected. By the end of our 10 min conversation he was willing to read a Gospel and find out about Jesus and meet up with someone to discuss stuff.
There's also an incredible openness with nominal Muslims, Buddhist and Hindus. Go for it!
Religion is on the Agenda , let's make the most of this opportunity!
The danger for us at Uni is to focus only on Apologetics. This is, of course, incredibly important. However I think we sometimes forget to talk about Jesus and the relationship we have with Him.
Every now and again we meet an "Angry Atheist" but do you know what?... I agree with a lot that they object to! They are pretty scary at first but after talking for a while they calm down and you're able to chat well. They can't believe I've read Dawkins, Harris etc and am still not convinced. John Dickson and Greg Clarke from the Centre of Public Christianity gave some really helpful advice when talking with new atheists.
Anyway I just wanted to encourage you to get out there and talk with people. The interest is there.
Julie-anne Laird
VIC Arrow 6,
State Coordinator: Arrow 10
Julie-anne works as an evangelist at Melbourne University with Christian Union where she trains and equips students in this massive task! She spends the rest of the time hanging out with her friends and loving her husband Andrew and four children.
Read more about this topic
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2011/06/15/3244185.htm?topic1=home&topic2=
