Getting to God

Quaker worship (especially unprogrammed worship) is famously minimal. But could we de-clutter even further?

What is the minimum we need to do as a community in order to:

• befriend each other and those around us
• worship together
• share our truths
• find our visions
• and act on them?

Imagine you’re washed up on a desert island. What would you do first to build spiritual community?

I have some experience in this, as I’ve been part of a young Quaker Bible study group for a couple of years now. We asked no questions and made no plans at the beginning, but gradually evolved graceful and helpful practices which enable us to get on with the main thing- deepening our shared spiritual life.

This came to mind recently as I spoke to a friend who is thinking about starting a similar group. I had to keep racking my brains about what made our group ‘special’. What kept coming back is that we made hardly any assumptions about how we needed to do stuff, and preserved a very minimal level of organisation. We just got on with it.

That’s where the title of this post comes from; perhaps there’s a new way of practising faith together, ‘Getting to God’.