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The Goats Have Added A Lot to the Spirit of the Church

There was so much excitement surrounding the goats that the story was featured once on local television and twice in the local newspaper (one article specifically about the goats and another featuring the Bon Air neighborhood that discussed the St. Michael’s goat phenomenon as part of the area’s charm).

< One of the Goat Crossing signs

The May 13th article Church Tends Herd of Holy Goats in the Richmond Times-Dispatch noted that “yellow ‘goat crossing’ signs have gone up in the neighborhood near the church and a trailer emblazoned with ‘St. Michael's Heavenly Herd of Holy Goats’ painted on its sides has turned a few heads and sparked curiosity…the fiberglass goats also prompted St. Michael's to purchase four live goats through Heifer International that will help a family in a Third World country.”
“That’s what we wanted,” Spriggs told the reporter in response to a question about the buzz in the community regarding the goats.

Beyond “Fun”
In addition to adding a lot of creative fun to the life of the parish, the goats have acted as evangelists, serving in their own whimsical way to invite newcomers in. They have encouraged outreach, inspiring parishioners to investigate organizations such as Heifer International and World Vision.
And in many ways, they have acted as agents of Christian formation. Biblically, of course, goats have not tended to serve as positive symbols. To evaluate this, Interim Pastor Charlie Johnson gave a “goat sermon” one Sunday, in which he explored the roles of goats in scripture and discussed the ways in which parishioners could truly evaluate the parable regarding the separation of the sheep from the goats.

One goat lived on a parish family’s porch roof

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