EVANGELIST J JOHN, who is to lead a mission to the York area next spring, challenged a huge congregation at York Minster last night to "get back to the original script" to find the real meaning of Christmas.

He was the guest speaker at a carol service organised by St Michael-le-Belfrey Church and York One Voice, the ecumenical group behind the forthcoming Just 10 mission which will run on ten consecutive Thursday evenings from April into June.

Last night a huge queue had built up stretching along High Petergate and into Low Petergate before the doors of the Minster opened at 6pm. By 6.30pm all the available seats had been taken and when the service started at 7pm there were large groups standing in the Minster round the edges.

The Rev Roger Simpson, Vicar of St Michael-le-Belfrey, said they had expected a lot of people for the service, but not quite that many.

Those involved in the service included the York One Voice Choir, the Salvation Army's York Citadel Band, which played the music for the carols, and the Riding Lights Theatre Company, based in Friargate, York.

J John employed his unique brand of humour to the full with joke after joke as he began to answer the question: "What's the point of Christmas?"

But he then reminded the congregation that there were problems in the world today ... in Britain today ... and in York today. These, he said, resulted from grudges, pain and grief and the fact that too many people thought that what they did did not matter.

He said one of the problems about Christmas was that people did not realise what they were celebrating. It was a bit like a birthday party where people turned up, kept on exclaiming "It's your birthday", but then proceeded to exchange presents with each other without giving anything to the person whose birthday it was.

J John said that people in debt could not help each other. They needed help from someone in credit.

"Jesus is the only one in credit. That's why Jesus, who came into the world, is known as our Saviour ... because he rescues us."

J John said that to get the full picture of Christmas people needed to look at Easter to see the extent of the love behind God's gift to the world.

Updated: 10:56 Monday, December 17, 2001