heading north

In a couple of weeks' time or so I'll be heading up north to Melness and Tongue to conduct the Sunday morning services there.

One of our members has been called to minister there, and he's kindly asked me to 'preach him in'. (That's just means that I conduct the first service he's there, and in that way sort of introduce, through the preaching, the ministry he's going to be exercising).

Not being that familiar with those parts (I've been there once before I think), I thought I should check it out a bit. And try and fix up some accommodation for the Saturday night.

I went onto the internet and googled 'Melness and Tongue'.

In a couple of clicks I was on to a site which spoke about the church.

I clicked on the heading MINISTERS on the menu bar.

And, no kidding, this is what I got -

Just a bit alarming!

Do all their ministers end their days washed up on the shore like this, an absolute wreck?!

I'm sure it was a mistake (though I did try the process again with the same result); but it did make me think of the 'brokenness' of Jesus himself and the cost of all ministry in his name.

I was really looking for a place to stay. Checking out the many Bed & Breakfast options that there are up there.

I eventually called a lady in a place a bit along the coast from Tongue. Once we'd conversed for a while she asked why I'd decided on her - there were other places a good deal nearer to Tongue, she said.

So I told her about 'Trip Advisor' and the consistently high praise which she and her B&B place had received from those who have sampled her hospitality. She was surprised, I think, to learn how much folk use and rely on resources like this.

Personal testimony.

It's an interesting phenomenon.

An establishment's website is one thing. There you'll get the 'official' line, the doctrinal statement, as it were: how many rooms, what like they are, the tarriff, the rating, and that sort of thing. And all of that is helpful, of course.

But you really want to know from those who've been there, from those, that is, who've exercised faith, and sampled the place first hand. What do they have to say?

'Trip Advisor' gives a global dimension to that whole 'word of mouth' sort of thing. It was that which sold the place to me in the end.

The power of personal testimony.

That's what's always needed in relation to the Lord. The "I once was blind, but now I see" sort of testimony. Not just the formal teaching of the Scriptures from the pulpit, important though that is. But that website-like exposition being supplemented and complemented by the 'trip-advisor' comments of practitioners.

I'd love us to be more and more that sort of 'trip-advisor' congregation!