US state’s religious service: a church employs outside toilet (empty) (13)
I believe the answer is:
massachusetts
'us state's' is the definition.
'massachusetts' can be an answer for 'state's' (Massachusetts is an example). I'm unsure of the 'us' bit.
'religious service a church employs outside toilet empty' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'service' could be 'mass' (mass is a church service) and 'mass' is found within the answer.
'a' is found in the answer.
'church' could be 'ch' (abbreviation on maps etc) and 'ch' is located in the answer.
'empty' could be 'e' (abbreviation e.g. on guages) and 'e' is located in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for massachusetts that I've seen before include "A NE US state" , "New England state" , "Bay State" , "Harvard's state" , "One of the original 13 US states" .)