Toilet evangelism

I’d like to share an interesting observation from church yesterday.

No, it wasn’t the morning sermon on welcome, which David kicked off by telling the story of when my church search came to St Silas. I wasn’t actually there as I was in Edinburgh over Saturday night seeing friends. It’s probably good that I wasn’t there to be embarassed, and it would be nice one day to move on from that episode and be known in St Silas for something else other than my blog review – perhaps my magnetic personality and dashing good looks. Incidentally, it was a very good sermon and you can listen to it here, as I did.

Neither is my observation about last night’s Deeper service. Which by the way was absolutely excellent – beautifully put together and very challenging.

Instead, it was the fact that in the men’s toilets in St Silas (I was caught short in the middle of the evening service) there is a poster quoting Colossians 1:11 on the wall:

“May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy”

I wonder who chose this verse and why it was deemed especially appropriate for the men’s toilets. Strength, endurance, patience, and finally joy? Was it put there with constipated people in mind? I’m just glad they they didn’t decide to use Leviticus 15:1-15

7 thoughts on “Toilet evangelism

  1. My favourite (1 Kings 18 NLT):

    26 So they prepared one of the bulls and placed it on the altar. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning until noontime, shouting, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no reply of any kind. Then they danced, hobbling around the altar they had made.

    27 About noontime Elijah began mocking them. “You’ll have to shout louder,” he scoffed, “for surely he is a god! Perhaps he is daydreaming, or is relieving himself. Or maybe he is away on a trip, or is asleep and needs to be wakened!”

  2. Perhaps the NHS should adopt the procedures detailed in your Leveticus reference in order to combat MRSA and bird flu. The pigeon sacrifice might be particularly relevant in the latter case.

  3. Hey Simon, don’t feel bad about being publicised. If David hadn’t mentioned you in the morning service I wouldn’t have found your blog or your flickr page (I’m also on flickr, do a search for photos by sasseymills).

    How did you get the MP3 of the sermon? I tried to find it off the church website but I couldn’t see a link. I’d like to pass it on to my folks back home so they can take a listen to see what church is like here in Scotland compared to Canada.

    Maybe I’ll see you on Sunday. I’ve only been attending for a few weeks as I’ve just moved to the country. Would be nice to make some new friends.

  4. Gareth thank you for making me laugh out loud! Never noticed that.

    Chris, welcome to Scotland, welcome to St Silas and welcome to my blog. Hopefully meet you in church some time soon – will try to keep my eyes open.

  5. Shouldn’t the “h” is “his” have been a capital “H”? I mean – if you don’t give the man with the long beard due respect, doesn’t he make you a frog in your next life?

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