I think that sounds like a pretty good evening whichever way you look at it.
And the rain came at the wrong moment and put people off all over the county, not just in Dibley!

Learned optimism. The ability to look at situations from the perspective of blessing. The opposite of learned pessimism, a rather common Scottish habit. A good advent attitude - and a blessed remnant. Oh, and there's something missiologically mischievous and pastorally admirable about a baptist vicar so well in with the local pub. Yuletide felicitations, Catriona!

Thanks both. An update - our collection for the local children's hospice taken at this event raised £61.01. Credit crunch or not, that's a generous level of giving.

Last Christmas I met the local vicar on my way to school with daughter 3. "How's it going?" he asked amiably. "We had 450 people at our carol service yesterday". I smiled graciously, less secure than I had been seconds earlier in the knowledge that our congregation of 50 had been a major achievement, given an average weekly attendance of about 30 (but that neither of us would see more than a handful of our Christmas visitors again for the rest of the year). This year I helped with the parish church's carol singing, giving out invites to their carol service and joined them for coffee afterwards rather than - ever so holily - resenting their every success and each irritating example of good practice.

You're absolutely right (as usual). The numbers do mask the real issue of what's going on with people. Tonight in our larger, rather than smaller, congregation were a lady who'd not come to church for over a month because of illness and who has some pretty challenging issues with her step-family (but who had nearly overcome her glitter phobia this morning to decorate tea light holders to give out in the evening), the husband of a lady who's just started coming said how much he'd appreciated the service because it hadn't got any of this modern made-up rubbish in it (some interesting conversations coming up next time he comes and we sing something post-1870, but still some sound first impressions to offset the disappointment). Or the lady recently admitted to long term nursing care, who we got a lift at the last minute and who was deeply reassured that everyone at church remembered her. Or the lady who was in intensive care last Christmas but now comes occasionally because we visited her when she first came out of her coma. Or intriguingly the lad who turned up on his bike and asked what sort of a place this was, texted his mum to say how long the service would last, and turned out (we subsequently think) to be someone a church member had helped get safely to school at a difficult time. He took three of the glittery tea-lights for him and his family, presumably leaving a sparkly trail all the way back to his family's one room temporary accommodation. Oh yes and I turned over a page too soon and unwittingly struck off one of the carols, so we'll have to sing 'In the Bleak Midwinter' some other time. But the congregation are used to me now and would really start worrying if I got everything right!

On the negative side, a member who possibly didn't come because I hadn't visited them when they were ill (I was sick and ye had a grant-making body to investigate; I was lonely and ye had a bit of an unproductive morning...), shows that the quality of what we do matters more than the surface sheen of numbers and presentation.

But putting all this down helps to remind me what matters to God and what God does about what matters. The small stuff, the mustard seed stuff... and how do you get fatty mince pie pastry stains out of nice red church carpets?

Wow! Andy that sounds FANTASTIC. I always remember your mustard seed sermon at D+1 and am mindful of the importance of small things.

Our carol service numbers last night whilst good were not as high as last year but it was still a superb event and some quality moments...

- the coach driver stayed for tea and the service
- everyone took away at least 2 angel notebooks, one to keep and one to pass on the good news to someone else (interestingly the coach driver took it upon himself to help distributing these!)
- I picked up 'Elsie' who lives in the flats opposite the school by car as she can't walk more than a couple of steps, and her gratitude was embarrassingly fulsome!

Of course there were the grumblers - someone who complained that the taxi we'd booked and paid for for them arrived 2 minutes late and was too high to get into
(though they'd clearly managed it!) - but overall it was a wonderful, warm evening.

Measuring success qualitatively rather than quantitatively would, I suspect lead to the latter arising naturally as we were less hung up on numbers and more on people (and God of course!)

Btw here's a really naff joke from last night (pre-service)

To minister dressed in red and sporting Santa hat, 'are you Mother Christmas?'

'No, I'm Mary....... Mary Christmas' (groan)

PS regarding the nice red carpets...

Option 1 - you don't/can't
Option 2 - put it in the freezer, oh, sorry, no, that's candle wax (and it doesn't work anyway)
Option 3 - try putting brown paper on it and ironing it (as above, marginally more successful)
Option 4 - wait seven days, show it to the priest and if it hasn't gone then burn the church down because it is clearly spreading mince-pie grease (the lost verse of Leviticus)
Option 5 - tell everyone it is an image of Jesus that mysteriously appeared and start a cottage tourist industry for people to visit and admire it.

Thank you for your helpful advice, which I shall pass on to the former church secretary.

Happy Christmas!