Sunday, February 17, 2002
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Sunday, February 17, 2002 |
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Sunday school pins and the love of God By DR. KNOX HERNDON If you have ever taken the Myers Briggs "Personality Analysis" instrument you will be, as I was, totally amazed at how this "written booklet" will have your personality down to a T. In other words, this several-page document will ask you questions many different ways, and in many different settings and it will truly amaze you as to how accurate it will be. While in the Army Chaplaincy, we were given this instrument to assist us in knowing our strengths and how these strengths can be used to best manage our human resources. It also showed how we can also be misunderstood by others who see things differently, and vise versa. It was used as a management tool to put the right personality "mixes" together in a work environment to best get the job done. In fact, it got to where I was comfortable enough with the instrument, and in administrating it, that I used it very effectively in many marriage counseling sessions. If you ever get a chance to take it, do so and your spouse also. Why am I telling you all this? Stay with this rabbit. There is a little meat on it! As I was walking through our bonus room at home, I looked down on the floor and saw something shinny. I bent down and picked it up and low and behold it was one of my old Sunday school pins. I held it and read the inscription and it read "Fifteen Years" and had a gold wreath around it. I smiled and my mind raced back in time to the many, many different Sunday schools around the world I had attended. Since Dad moved so much in the military, it was not uncommon for us to have been in 5-7 different Sunday schools in a 10-year period. It was also difficult to keep up with all the record keeping it took to assure you of getting your Sunday school pin, especially a 15-year one. Back to "Myers Briggs" personality analysis. I have taken the instrument several times and I always test out as an E-S-F-J. Now what this all means in "Briggs" language is that I am an Extravert, Sensing, Feeling, and come to a Judgment. If these terms scare you, they shouldn't because this is the way God "wired us." Now back to the Sunday school pins. One of the characteristics of an E-S-F-J is the fact that he or she has a "collective personality." In other words, we gather "collections" of things, i.e. Sunday school pins. As a child I saw several young children that had not moved around the world that had "bars" attached to their pins for service. It, of course, was not possible to keep up with all of the logistics needed to accomplish this. It was a miracle that I was able to get the 15-year pin, although I never missed Sunday school unless I had 108 degrees of serious fever. In fact, my mother, when she would tell me about when I was born, she would say, "Knox was born in time for Sunday school." I don't know the actual time of my birth, but I'm almost sure it was around the traditional 10 a.m. Sunday school hour. It still appalls me to hear the truly flimsy excuses people give me these days for not attending to Christ's bride every Sunday. Where one might today smile at even the idea of Sunday School pins, I look back very fondly on the hundreds of Sundays where I heard over and over that "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so." I must bring this epistle to a close, and in so doing I quote what my father would say to me every Sunday he would hear me preach. As he got older, he would hobble down the aisle and sit about in the third row and as I would be preaching away, waxing eloquently, and he would immediately fall asleep. He would sleep through the entire sermon and wake up at the invitational hymn. After the service he would hobble on his cane up to me, smile and say, "Fine sermon, son." I would smile back at him and say, "Dad, what did I preach on?" He would say, "The love of God, son, the love of God." He knew if I didn't I was wrong. The love of God is there for you on this, the Love Month. Message here? Get into a good church and a good Sunday school and wear your pins proudly! Dr. Knox Herndon is the pastor of His House Community Church (SBC). The Rev. Greg Mausz is senior associate pastor. The Rev. Dr. Lydia Herndon is the Sunday School superintendent, Bible study coordinator and teacher. The church is below Senoia on Ga. Highway 85 a mile south of Ga. Highway 16 on the right just below the fire station. Visitors welcome. Church office and prayer line 770-719-2365; e-mail KHERN2365@aol.com.
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