Thoughts from the Thicket
San Jacinto Newstimes , October 2007
By DR. DON SHANNON
Coldspring First Baptist Church

I think I have mentioned that my wife loves goats, and no that’s not the reason she married me.  I do, however, share her esteem for the interesting, but sometime maligned animals.
I grew up with goats.  There were little ones that we fed with a bottle, and bigger ones that butted us from behind when we weren’t looking.  Some friends of ours had a big herd of goats that provided us with an endless supply.  Some of those we took home had been orphaned and others we just took a liking to.  At times they were a lot of trouble, but nonetheless they provided us with hours of entertainment.
My whole family was fond of our goats; that is, all but one.  This one goat would show up at our house now and then, and when he did it was rather embarrassing.  He was quite big for a goat, sported long hair and had two sturdy horns that curved back from his forehead.  In addition, he had lengthy beard that hung just below his bottom lip.  His musical abilities were nothing to write home about, just a “ baa-baa” here, and a “baa-baa” there, but certainly enough to get everyone’s attention, and that was the goat’s purpose to begin with.
My dad belonged to a local men’s service club, which was always trying to encourage its members to attend the monthly and sometimes weekly meetings on a regular basis.  The club had tried everything from fines to door prizes.  Nothing seemed to work until that day when one of the men said, “Let’s get ourselves a goat…”  His idea was to punish absentees by staking the goat out in their front yard where it was to stay until the next meeting. 
During that time the absentee had to see to the goat’s every need and field the complaints from the neighbors about the baa-baa here and baa-baa there.  Most often the goat would speak its mind in the wee morning hours, and that, of course, only multiplied the problem. The idea was a good one.  No one wanted to have the goat in his yard, and absenteeism at the club plummeted to an all time low.  
I’ve often wondered if a similar program would work in Sunday School.  Skip a Sunday and get the goat.  I predict that one of two things would happen, either Sunday School attendance would sky rocket, or the church would lose a lot of members.  Someone I shared this with didn’t feel that the loss of membership would be too great since he felt that any other church a person might move to would itself have at least one old goat.
In reality, no one should have to be coerced into attending Sunday School and church.   We ought to attend church regularly because we love the Lord and love being in His house with other Christians, not because we want to keep a goat out of our yard.  Regular attendance at God’s house ought to be a practice of every Christian.   Hebrews 10:25 admonishes us to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together.  This, of course, is in line with Jesus’ own words in Matthew 18:20, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”