Thanks to Sean who had a link from his blog to this excellent little story, courtesy of William C Willimon from whose blog I quote ...

A story: A man died. He had not lived the most worthy of lives, to tell the truth. In fact, he was somewhat of a scoundrel. He therefore found himself in Hell, after his departure from this life.

His friends, concerned about his sad, though well-deserved fate, went down to Hell, and moved by the man’s misery, rattled those iron gates, calling out to whomever might be listening, “Let him out! Let him out!"

Alas, their entreaties accomplished nothing. The great iron doors remained locked shut.

Distinguished dignitaries were summoned, powerful people, academics, intellectuals, prominent personalities. All of them stood at the gates and put forth various reasons why the man should be let out of his place of lonely torment. Some said that due process had not been followed in the man’s eternal sentence. Others appealed to Satan’s sense of fairplay and compassion.

The great iron gates refused to move.

In desperation, the man’s pastor was summoned. The pastor came down to the gates of hell, fully vested as if he were to lead a Sunday service.“Let him out! He was not such a bad chap after all. Once he contributed to the church building fund and twice he served meals at a soup kitchen for the homeless. Let him out!”

Still, the gates of Hell stood fast.

Then, after all the friends and well wishers finally departed in dejection, the man’s aged mother appeared at the gates of Hell. She stood there, stooped and weak, only able to whisper softly, in maternal love, “Let me in.

And immediately the great gates of Hell swung open and the condemned man was free.

Something akin to that great miracle happened for us on a starry night at Bethlehem

If passing this on please credit William Willimon.

I called into Argos this morning for a present for a friend, only to discover my order number was 666.  I had a smirk to myself and then joined the queue.  Obviously the good people at Argos were wary, they called everything up to 665 and then 667 to 670 before daring to hit the button for 666.

We Christians get ourselves in tangles over some daft things don't we?  Remember the 1980's and the 'back masking' thing - if you play records backwards they are satanic (so if you play The Eagles or Black Sabbath backwards do they become Christian?).  In the 1990's there were those who prayed over discarded spools of cassette tape - the way in which they alleged satanists marked their territory, not simply what someone had lobbed out of a car window.  Then in the early 2000's I was told that Wagner had Nazi links and that Harry Potter was evil, so I have only listened to the Ride of the Valkirie or read about Goblets of Fire under the bedclothes ever since!

The SU Bible notes I use recently ran an excellent series on Revelation written by an Australian Bible translator.  He clearly presented good, scholarly understandings of the book and spoke of the cultural relevance to people on Pacific islands.  Not sure he'd have got published by SU in the 1980's or 1990's - it is good to say how many of us have actually grown up since then.

Not quite sure how to get the gammatria to give 666 as the number of my name but I'm sure some of you will find a way!  Afterall, you always wondered, didn't you?!

'Ain't God good' as the saying goes?  Our Sing Christmas venue was full - and when four people left for various reasons another four arrived to take their place.  Amazing.

The service was not quite as slick as last year, perhaps because Radio Leicester had had to change venue at the last minute and they had managed to provide different words for one of the carols to those they sang on air (interesting!).  Despite this it went really well and people enjoyed it.  Many came out to hang a bauble on the tree and everyone joined in with great gusto pulling crackers and party poppers; the room came alive when we lit our festive candles and it was great at the end to see people shaking hands with people they did not know.

So, around 50 people, I reckon, of whom about half were our own folk, 2 Methodists, 3 Anglicans, 3 Penties and 1 Roman Catholic.  Of those with no known church connection, about half came from our Lunch Club and the rest had responded to leaflets or poster advertising.

I think the balance was right - it showed us that people will come to a service in a pub, but not in droves.

It was humbling to see people in their 80's find make their way through the rabbit warren of passages to find the steep staircase that led to the 'upper room' (!) where we were meeting.

Once again, at the end of the evening I was able to stand back and survey a room full of happy people supping tea and munching endless mince pies before they set off back into the night.

I spoke to one elderly gentleman who'd come in responce to one of my posters who said as he left 'that's done me a power of good.'  It was lovely to see how he had been made welcome by two of our own oldies and how he wished everyone he passed a Happy Christmas on his way out.  Who knows, maybe he was an angel in disguise?

I was proud of my little church who had allowed their crazy minister to talk them into this venture and had then pulled it off so brilliantly.

God certainly is good and Jesus was certainly present 'in the pub' tonight.

Tonight we join with BBC Radio Leicester and people in at least 20 other registered venues to Sing Christmas.

I am looking forward to it, though at the same time wondering, will anyone come to join us?  Today I have put some A2 posters on public noticeboards in a last effort to drum up a congregation beyond our own stalwarts.  A number of folk have expressed concern that no-one will come - but I'm not sure they've invited anyone!

If you are reading this, and on broadband (to keep costs down!) you can join in online from 7 p.m. BST by going to the BBC Radio Leicester website and clicking on the 'listen live' button (it's a few seconds slow being digital) or if you miss it there's always the 'listen again' option!

Now, just need to load the Saxo with junk, find something 'warm-festive-casual' to wear (aside from my tinsel deely boppers!) and prepare to smile at people for a few hours!!

This week is another manic week in Dibley - and it involves an awful lot of food!

After the weekend's extravaganza, yesterday it was the last Advent prayer group, with soup lunch, but being the minister's birthday, someone brought trifle, someone else mince pies and a third person a cake.  After a race round to fit in a funeral visit and a sick visit, it was time for a proper 'Vicar of Dibley' party complete with chocolate fountain, supplied by one of my deacons.  Fortunately it was not large enough to dive into but seven of us had a fun time dunking strawberries, bananas, marshmallows and other yummy things into it as part of a girlie evening (never quite got to watch the chick flicks I'd bought specially, but the chocolate was far more interesting).

Today was the lunch club Christmas dinner - fifty wrinklies in a coach travelling to Quarndon for lunch.  The food was fine, but the service was abysmal - if you know what Quarndon is famous for, don't book a large party in at the pub named after the hapless creature pursued there.  Three hours for a two course basic lunch - and I never got my cup of tea.  Ah well, we laughed about it on the way home and the coach driver was forgiving.  We had a Social Services visitor, who we treated to lunch, who indicated they'd like to grow our club by as much as another 20 members next year... watch this space.

Tomorrow we 'Sing Christmas' in the pub with Radio Leicester - which includes biscuits and mince pies along the way.  Also crackers, party poppers, candles and a Christmas tree - very 'post modern'/'emerging.'

The weekend is an endless round of services, food, services and, hmm, food.  Proper Baptists, trying to convert our Christian siblings to our ways!

It is very tiring but it has been a fun week.  With the local rag, Baptist Times and Methodist Recorder all carrying the story of Sunday's service, a media request for photos from tomorrow night, and the new BUGB prayer diary featuring us next September, I feel that it has been a good year and that the parties are well deserved!