Uncertain man

I wanted to depict a story within a story to add interest and mystery to the painting.  Painting Christ inviting people into his church is pretty straight forward.  Straight forward can read 'uninteresting'.  Us humans like a little mystery in our artoworks.  It's classic story telling, art making, dance, philosophy, or whatever.   Don't give it all away.  Make the viewer a part of the experience.
    So,  in the real world people can be very uncertain that they want to have religion in their lives.   I posed my son in law in a leather jacket with the task of making his body language read "indecisive" and conflicted.  We decided that the hand on the neck is a classic body language that reads this emotion.  We shot about 120 photos to get the gesture and the facial expression just right.  Then when I painted him, I changed the face into a redheaded man with dreadlocks and altered the features so that someone looking at the painting won't recognize the model.  He will be looking directly at Christ and Christ will be looking directly at him.