Knowing God - is it possible?

We start at around 7pm with a meal together. (Some people can't get there for it - that's fine - come for 7:30 to start the discussion if you like, but you'll be missing a good supper and the chance to get to know the others on the course, who are of course all lovely people just like yourself.) We don't do dessert at this point, though, because it works well to take a pause in the discussion for a dessert/coffee break later on!

Video and chat

Then we start the evening's topic at 7:30. First there's a little trigger video just to get you thinking! The videos are between three and five minutes in length, and if you want to see what they're like, you can check out some of the videos from our last course (Yesterday's Hero) on YouTube. Have a look and see what you think.

The Notebook

You'll also be given a Course Notebook, which contains a lot of articles and snippets relating to the topics we're discussing, including passages from the Bible so that you can see what the Big Christian Book says about these things. The Notebook also contains all the discussion questions, so that we're all on the same page, and so that if you have to miss a week you'll know what we were talking about in your absence!

(It's important to notice, though, that we try to be incredibly flexible. If the group wants to spend most of its time on just one question, which everybody thinks is super-important, then that's what we'll do. Even if it's a question which we didn't think you'd ask and haven't included in the manual. Because the bottom line is: we want to talk about those things which are most helpful to you - it's what you think that matters in the end, after all.)

And that's the way the evening goes. Three videos, three discussions launching off from something the Bible says, and some kind of delicious pudding appearing in the middle of it all somewhere. We aim to finish at 9 o'clock and we try to be reliable about that. (Of course, people often want to stay on and chat, and that's fine. We've even continued the discussion in the pub on a couple of occasions with people who wanted to.)

Missing: the unnerving holy stuff

So what won't you get? No religious bits - no hymns, no prayers, definitely no collections. Just a good relaxed evening in the company of people who aren't experts, but are all interested in finding out more. You don't need to be qualified in any way; we've had university lecturers and GCSE drop-outs, church-attending people and others who've never darkened a church door in their lives. There's no homework and no advance reading to be done (although if you want to read more on your own, we can always make suggestions; in fact we keep a stock of good books you can have for nothing if you're so inclined).

Er, what's not to like? Come on the 20th of February and see if you don't enjoy it.