Our first QuakerQuest event seems to have gone very well.  Really it is for those who came, not those who organised it, to say.  But there was a real buzz with most of the seekers saying they had enjoyed it, or found it interesting, or hoped to come again.  With around thirty people, at least a dozen of whom were completely new to the meeting, it was a good turnout.  Clearly Strictly Come Dancing is not universally required viewing!

We started with around 20 minutes of food and fellowship, and it already had a very warm atmosphere.  (Those racing to get here, the introduction proper starts at around 6.50.)  Ruth hosted, making a splendid MC, and Gwyneth introduced the topic Probably is a God.  The introducer treads a path between a purely personal view and trying to set out what ‘Friends in general' think.  Gwyneth handled this adroitly by pointing out how her views had changed over time.  Chris and Jocelyn then gave personal views.  Some meetings bring in good speakers from other groups - we had taken the view that this was ours and we would do all the talks, a decision which was vindicated by what we were able to get..  Thoughtful, personal, sincere, open-minded... (not preachy or overprepared) hopefully everyone got a sense of how the Quaker journey works.

We broke into small groups, I had two people who had never been to meeting before, one who had been to a Quaker school, but not to meeting for ages, and one who said so little I cannot really say anything.  The discussion flowed and soon it was time to go back to more presentations.  Themes came up was whether there are many paths to God (or one path with many names), whether Quakers have a single uniform view of Jesus (No!), why bad things happen to good people, was Quakerism incompatible with agnosticism (happy bedmates) and requests for more personal journeys.

As Ruth said in her introduction, the organizers were almost as nervous as those who came.  But the publicity worked, and I feel confident that we have two more remarkable sessions to go.

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