It’s a miracle!
The folks down at TBN did the unthinkable. They invited me back to their show once again. To be honest after my first appearance on The Praise the Lord Show last fall I thought that I would be forever banished from TBN land. What happened? I told the story of my big, brash, bodybuilding uncle Jack whose sinner’s prayer was something like,
“Hell yeah I’ll trust in Christ!”
(He didn’t know any better! When the preacher shared grace he was so overwhelmed that he dropped an h bomb!”)
When Ted Haggard (the President of the National Association of Evangelicals and once-in-a-while host of this show) heard me tell this story he had a stunned look on his face and exclaimed, “You just cussed on TBN!” Without thinking I blurted, “Well it’s a miracle!” with my hands raised in the air and a half smile. The crowd went wild and I just kept on ranting and raving and having fun with the lively TBN crowd, totally oblivious to how I was coming across to the viewers at home (can you say “like a kook’?)
Have you ever been in one of those situations where you try to make a joke but keep digging yourself deeper and deeper? Suffice it to say that the shovel was getting heavy in my hands by the end of my TBN segment last fall.
To add insult to self-inflicted injury I was getting my preacher fires fed by the addicted-to-amen audience that was there before me. When I start preaching and people respond the veins in my neck come out and my eyeballs look like they are going to pop out of my head and slingshot across the room into somebody’s eye (wouldn’t that be eyeronic?)
My brother called me up from Des Moines and told me that I looked like a crazed WWE wrestler calling out Satan to a battle royale in the ring. Others told me that my appearance on the show was “interesting” and “special.” I believe the words “train” and “wreck ” were used in the same descriptive sentence by a certain nameless Dare 2 Share staff person (you know who you are.)
But last night was my opportunity to “totally redeem” myself from my borderline foul mouthed fiasco last fall. As I walked into the TBN studios in Dallas one of the stage managers/producers walked up to me with a stern look on her face and said, “Tonight, no cussing please.” My heart dropped until I saw her smile. She was giving me a hard time and told me that the TBN crew thought the last show was a hoot and they were glad to have me back (take that nameless Dare 2 Share staff person!)
With the words “don’t blow this one” ringing in my head I determined that this show was going to be a good one: no quasi-cussing, tame the veins, keep the baby blues in their sockets and just talk.
This particular show was being hosted by one of my heroes, Luis Palau, one of the greatest evangelists of our generation! Lee Strobel, Mike Silva, Brad Stine and a few other big name guys were on the show as well (I felt really out of place!) And guess what? When my turn came to chat it up with Luis I was able to share the vision of Dare 2 Share and the power of the GOSPEL Journey Reality Series while sitting and almost sounding like I was “just talking”…almost. They even let me give the gospel at the end.
If you’d like to see the show it comes on next Wednesday the 17th on The Trinity Broadcasting Network at night (check your local listings for exact times and station.) I strongly encourage you to watch it. Lee Strobel and Mark Mittelberg did a phenom job talking about the Davinci Code stuff. Mike Silva, Wayne Watson, Brad Stine, Kevin Palau and Luis all knocked it out of the park.
And me? You’ll have to tune in to see if I dropped any h bombs or not.
Now that’s a miracle.
